Hospital ownership and efficiency: A review of studies with particular focus on Germany

The German hospital market has been subject over the past two decades to a variety of healthcare reforms. Particularly the introduction of diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) in 2004 aimed to increase efficiency of hospitals. The objective of the paper is to review recent studies comparing the efficienc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health policy (Amsterdam) Vol. 104; no. 2; pp. 163 - 171
Main Authors: Tiemann, Oliver, Schreyögg, Jonas, Busse, Reinhard
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Ireland Elsevier Ireland Ltd 01.02.2012
Subjects:
Comparative analysis
Corporations, Nonprofit
Data envelopment analysis
Efficiency, Administrative
Efficiency, Organizational
Evidence
Germany
Health care
Health policy
Health services
Hospital Administration - standards
Hospitals
Hospitals - standards
Hospitals, Private - standards
Hospitals, Proprietary - standards
Hospitals, Public - standards
Hospitals, Voluntary - standards
Humans
Internal Medicine
Management
Non-profit organizations
Nonprofit making organizations
Ownership
Ownership - standards
Performance measurement
Policy making
Private hospitals
Private sector
Profit
Reform
Stochastic Frontier Analysis
Stochastic Processes
U.S.A
United States
United States
Germany
Hospitals
Performance measurement
Stochastic Frontier Analysis
Germany
Data envelopment analysis
ISSN:0168-8510, 1872-6054, 1872-6054
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The German hospital market has been subject over the past two decades to a variety of healthcare reforms. Particularly the introduction of diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) in 2004 aimed to increase efficiency of hospitals. The objective of the paper is to review recent studies comparing the efficiency of German public, private non-profit and private for-profit hospitals. The results of the studies are quite mixed. However, in line with the evidence found in studies from other countries, especially the US, the evidence from Germany suggests that private ownership (i.e., private non-profit and private for-profit) is not necessarily associated with higher efficiency compared to public ownership. This may be a surprising result to many policy makers as private for-profit hospitals are often perceived the most efficient ownership type by the public.
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ISSN:0168-8510
1872-6054
1872-6054
DOI:10.1016/j.healthpol.2011.11.010