Healthcare is a critical and costly industry. In the U.S. a significant component of healthcare costs are expenses generated in hospitals. This paper reports the results of analyzing 607 U.S. hospitals between 2006-2009 using a dynamic network slack-based Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Model. We find accounting for the dynamic and network structure of the hospital lowers efficiency estimates. ...

Increasingly, quality improvement initiatives emphasize public reporting of hospital performance measures, to encourage providers to improve, to help consumers pick providers, and to determine provider payments. Although these measures are based on compliance with well-established processes of care, it is unknown whether quality measured in this way is correlated with, or predictive of, clinica...

The objective of this study was to examine the association between the scope and intensity of Quality improvement (QI) implementation in hospitals and organizational performance. A sample of 1,784 community hospitals was used to assess relationships between QI implementation approach and two hospital-level performance indicators: cash flow and cost per case. Two-stage instrumental variables est...

This paper examines the impact of health information technology (HIT) implementation and meaningful use on hospital productivity and financial performance. Focusing specifically on the healthcare sector allows us to examine at a more granular level the manner in which hospitals and other healthcare organizations adopt, implement and use their HIT systems and how such use impacts their performan...

Many common management practices in healthcare organizations, including the practice of strategic planning, have not been subject to widespread assessment through empirical research. If management practice is to be evidence-based, evaluations of such common practices need to be undertaken. The purpose of this research is to provide evidence on the extent of strategic planning practices and the ...

Acute care hospitals have increasingly been forming local strategic hospital alliances (SHAs), which consume considerable resources in forming and may affect the competitiveness of provider markets. This research shows that SHAs and market factors, which have been perceived to be threats to hospitals, are related to hospitals' financial performance. Among the findings are that SHA members have ...

We monitored outpatient waiting times at UK military hospitals over an 18-month period (September 1996-March 1998). The highest mean waiting times for Consultant appointment were in urology (19 weeks) and orthopaedics (18 weeks). The lowest mean waiting times were in psychiatry (3 weeks), ENT surgery (5 weeks) and rheumatology (6 weeks). Waiting times for surgical specialties were around 50% hi...