Does the adoption of new technology boost productive efficiency in the public sector? The case of ICUs system

Abstract

In the last decade, a significant amount of financial resources has been devoted by the Greek Government and the European Union to provide the intensive care units (ICU) of the Greek Public Health Care System with high-tech medical equipment in order to improve their productive efficiency. Using a unique data set, we employ the DEA bootstrap of Simar and Wilson (2007) approach to estimate the efficiency of each ICU and to explore the impact of these investments on their efficiency. Our results indicate that, although the technical efficiency is benefited from the embodiment of new medical technology, the scale efficiency remains unaffected. The role of the asymmetric information, of the ICUs' proximity to pools of knowledge and of the composition of the medical personnel, seems to be the crucial factors for the improvement of their productive efficiency.Productive efficiency Intensive care units Medical technology Bootstrapped DEA