Testing efficiency in the health sector: a case of Uganda's health centre IVs

Abstract

This paper examined the technical efficiency and scale efficiency of health centre IVs in Uganda. Using data from the Annual Health sector performance report for the financial year 2019-2020 and Health Sector Grant and Budget Guidelines to Local Governments report 2019-2020, the technical efficiency, scale efficiency and projections of the quantities of health centre input and outputs needed to make inefficient health centres efficient were determined. An output-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with Variable Returns to Scale (VRS) was used to analyse the data for pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency for a sample of 28 health centre IVs. It was revealed that 14 (50%) health centre IVs were VRS technically inefficient while 15 (54%) were scale inefficient. The average pure technical efficiency score of 92% implied that the health centres are in position to increase their output levels by 8% with the same amount of inputs (beds and annual budget allocation).