Measuring efficiency of hand surgery departments using data envelopment analysis(DEA)

This paper developed an approach based on data envelopment analysis(DEA) including CCR, BCC and FG models to evaluate the performance of hand surgery departments. Concerning the characteristics of hand surgery, the design of decision making unit(DMU) with 3 input indexes and 3 output indexes were conducted through the communication tool of IDEF0. Five sets of muti-index criteria were introduced to provide a comprehensive measurement. The approach was applied to a case study of 22 hand surgery departments in Mainland China. In the cases, the relative input-output efficiency of service quality, labor, medicine, and facility were measured, and several constructive suggestions about resources allocation and scale were proposed. The case study shows that this efficiency measurement method is applicable and instructive for hand surgery management.