Title: Testing efficiency in the health sector: a case of Uganda's health centre IVs

Authors: Tibesigwa Warren; Juma James Masele; Gerald Bernard Magova

Addresses: Department of Management Science, Makerere University Business School, Kampala, Uganda ' Department of General Management, University of Dar es Salaam Business School, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania ' Department of General Management, University of Dar es Salaam Business School, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Abstract: This paper examined the technical efficiency and scale efficiency of health centre IVs in Uganda. Using data from the Annual Health sector performance report for the financial year 2019-2020 and Health Sector Grant and Budget Guidelines to Local Governments report 2019-2020, the technical efficiency, scale efficiency and projections of the quantities of health centre input and outputs needed to make inefficient health centres efficient were determined. An output-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with Variable Returns to Scale (VRS) was used to analyse the data for pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency for a sample of 28 health centre IVs. It was revealed that 14 (50%) health centre IVs were VRS technically inefficient while 15 (54%) were scale inefficient. The average pure technical efficiency score of 92% implied that the health centres are in position to increase their output levels by 8% with the same amount of inputs (beds and annual budget allocation).

Keywords: data envelopment analysis; health centre IV; technical efficiency; scale efficiency; Uganda.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBHR.2022.122007

International Journal of Behavioural and Healthcare Research, 2022 Vol.8 No.1/2, pp.84 - 103

Received: 10 Apr 2021
Accepted: 06 Jan 2022
Published online: 07 Apr 2022 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article