Efficiency of the medical care industry: Evidence from the Italian regional system

• Published in: European journal of operational research Vol. 217; no. 3; pp. 643 - 652
• Main Authors: Ippoliti, Roberto, Falavigna, Greta
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 16.03.2012; Elsevier; Elsevier Sequoia S.A
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Biological and medical sciences; Data Envelopment Analysis; Economy. Management; Efficiency; Exact sciences and technology; Externalities; Firm modelling; Health and social institutions; Health care industry; Human; Markets; Mathematical programming; Mathematics; Medical; Medical research; Medical researcher; Medical sciences; Nonparametric inference; Operational research; Operational research and scientific management; Operational research. Management science; Operations research; OR in health services; Patients; Perception; Pharmaceutical clinical research; Probability and statistics; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Regional analysis; Research subjects; Sciences and techniques of general use; Statistics; Studies; Suppliers; Vendor supplier relations; Italy; Research subjects; Medical researcher; Regional analysis; OR in health services; Data Envelopment Analysis; Pharmaceutical clinical research; Human; Competitiveness; Hospital management; Mobility; Non parametric method; Non parametric estimation; Markets; Experimental study; Externality; Efficiency; Regional system; Perception; Pharmaceutical industry; Medical application; Public health; Data envelopment analysis
• ISSN: 0377-2217; 1872-6860
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2011.10.010

► Patients’ perception of good quality of outputs supplied by the medical care industry. ► Efficiency as the supplier’s ability to maximize the number of patients. ► Positive externality of pharmaceutical clinical research on that kind of efficiency. What might be the relation between clinical research and efficiency of medical care suppliers? Is the hypothesis of a positive relation consistent? Considering efficiency as the supplier’s ability to maximize the number of patients hospitalized in a mobility process among regions (i.e. mobility balance), this work aims at highlighting the existence of a positive externality of pharmaceutical clinical research on that kind of efficiency. In other words, an externality is able to affect the patients’ perception of good/bad quality of outputs supplied by the medical care industry, leading their mobility process. Taking Italy and the mobility of patients among regions into account, an Operational Research study will be performed in order to support this assumption. The goal of this work is to show an alternative way to increase the efficiency of medical care suppliers on the market of health care, that is to say, through their competitiveness on the market of human experimentation.