Title: Economic efficiency of day hospital: case of surgery department

Authors: Patricia Blatnik; Matjaž Novak

Addresses: Abelium – Research and Development Company, Kajuhova 90, Ljubljana, Slovenia ' Faculty of Management Koper, University of Primorska, Cankarjeva 5, Koper, Slovenia

Abstract: The article discusses the case study analysis of economic efficiency of health service processes in the context of the so-called day hospital. The day hospital model is the result of gradual development. Its evolutionary background takes shape in health systems, typical for developed Western countries. This framework is a popular approach towards increasing economic efficiency of hospitals. However, regarding reference literature, we can see that the topic of economic efficiency in healthcare industry offers a huge amount of references, whereas literature on economic efficiency of day hospitals offers only few articles and case studies. The presented case study is performed on the case of the Izola General Hospital, Slovenia. We simulate economic effects for surgery department. From the empirical analysis we can conclude that, in terms of economic efficiency, the performance of the day hospital is better than classical hospital framework.

Keywords: microeconomics; sustainability; day hospitals; economic efficiency; surgery departments; sustainable development; healthcare services; simulation; hospital performance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSE.2013.054765

International Journal of Sustainable Economy, 2013 Vol.5 No.3, pp.307 - 320

Published online: 31 Mar 2014 *

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