Hospital performance in morocco and covid-19: application of data envelopment analysis and the Malmquist index

Abstract

This paper presents a model on the estimation of the technical efficiency of hospital supply in Morocco at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. This evaluation will allow us to compare the efficiency of the different provincial or prefectural public hospital networks, to measure the change in productivity during the 2012-2015 period and to project it into the future.

 The main objective is to know if the 2010 reforms including the Hospital Establishment Project (PEH), Accreditation ...etc. have improved the production process and optimized human and material resources (Doctors, nurses, number of hospitals in each province and bed capacity). Our estimated empirical approach, which is based on theories of production economy and efficiency, is based on a method called Data Envelope Data, it includes two models: constant returns to scale (CRS) and variable returns to scale (VRS). We add the Malmquist index to study the factors of production.

The results show a big disparity in the hospital offer. It is the result of the decline in total factor productivity before the COVID-19 pandemic. It will therefore be necessary to double efforts to deal with this pandemic in the short, medium and long term. We found difficultie in the absence of statistics on inputs and outputs used during the 2016-2020 period.