Measuring Efficiency in Health Care

Rowena Jacobs is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Economics, University of York. Peter C. Smith is Professor of Economics at the University of York. Andrew Street is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Economics, University of York.

• Figures; Tables; Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. Efficiency in health care; 2. The components of an efficiency model; 3. Stochastic frontier analysis of cross-sectional data; 4. Stochastic frontier analysis of panel data; 5. Data envelopment analysis; 6. The Malmquist Index; 7. A comparison of SFA and DEA; 8. Unresolved issues and challenges in efficiency measurement; 9. Some alternative approaches to measuring performance; 10. Conclusions; Appendix; References; Author index; Subject index; Acronyms.

'Many health efficiency researchers have locked themselves into becoming experts in a small set of methods, but this excellent book illustrates why everyone's toolkit needs to be more expansive to answer the policy questions at hand. And more importantly, it explains how to choose the right model for the right policy question.' James F. Burgess, Jr, Boston University School of Public Health