Title: Efficiency measurement of comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care centres of Tamil Nadu

Authors: S. Rajasulochana; Umakant Dash

Addresses: Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai-600 036, India ' Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai-600 036, India

Abstract: The broad objective of the paper is efficiency measurement of comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care (CEmONC) centres of Tamil Nadu, India. The study uses the performance indicators for the year 2010 to 2011 of CEmONC centres. Efficiencies are calculated for 15 different specifications of DEA model thereby examining whether the efficiency scores remain stable when variables are considered in different combinations. Principal component analysis is carried on the results obtained so as to explore what is behind a DEA score. The results show that the efficiency of CEmONC centres can be explained by means of two principal components, and also the similiarity as well as the dissimiliarity between the specified models can be easily assessed using this approach. The methodology of multivariate analysis of efficiency scores adapted to public hospitals provides valuable information on different patterns of efficient behaviour; there is no single path to efficiency in CEmONC centres.

Keywords: data envelopment analysis; DEA; CEmONC; emergency obstetrics; newborn care; multivariate analysis; India; efficiency measurement; Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project; principal component analysis; PCA; public hospitals; public healthcare; newborn babies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBHR.2013.058851

International Journal of Behavioural and Healthcare Research, 2013 Vol.4 No.3/4, pp.283 - 304

Received: 14 Jan 2013
Accepted: 04 Oct 2013
Published online: 21 Jun 2014 *

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