Cost-benefit Analysis Of Clinical Departments In Hospitals

Objective To develop an assessing indicators system of cost-benefit of clinical departments in hospitals, and explore the methodology on evaluating cost-benefit of clinical departments for the purpose that these methods could benefit in improving utilization efficiency of medical care resource and management quality of clinical departments in hospitals.Subjects Sixty specialists from six general hospital graded 3A were surveyed twice by consultation questionnaire which was constructed by 17 to 20 items about cost and benefit of clinical departments. Specialists were composed of the directors and assistants from different department's including infirmary departments, economic and manage departments and clinical departments.The clinical departments of two general hospitals graded 3A and one hospital graded 2A were investigated to obtain data, such as report forms of property, storeroom account, statistical information of medical care, monthly report from economic and manage department, from Jan 2004 to Jun 2005. Methods Delphi technique was used to develop an assessing indicators system of cost-benefit of clinical departments in hospitals. The linear regression was applied to explore the impact factors on the cost and benefit. Efficiency and slack value were calculated by the data envelopment analysis (DEA), which made the target analysis and benefit analysis for clinical departments available. The benefit of clinical departments was sorted and classified by the Topsis procedure. ResultsSixty copies of questionnaires were delivered and 48 returned in the first round...