DEA evaluation of health project performance

Health care industry is one of the largest and most fragmented industries in the US with almost 600,000 different providers that vary greatly in terms of size, staffing patterns, and organizational structures. This paper evaluates the operational efficiency of 1228 health projects from National Institutes of Health in New York State, USA using Data Envelopment Analysis. Special emphasis was placed on investigating the environmental variables which exert significant influence to the project performance. Finally, recommendations to management´s use of DEA results were given.