The Production Function of the Hospitals in Iran: A Systematic Review

Context:

 Hospitals are the most important section in relation to health economy, accounting for 50-80% of the health budget in developing countries.

 The present study aimed to estimate the production functions of the hospitals in Iran.
Data Sources: This systematic review was conducted via searching in the international databases of Scopus, ISI, PubMed and Persian databases of IDML, SID, MagIran for access to data in 2019 with no time limits using keywords such as hospitals, hospital performance, hospital performance assessment, production function estimation, and Iran. The required data on the authors, year of publication, language of publication, and number of hospitals were extracted from the articles using a checklist. The extracted data were categorized and interpreted in the Excel software.

 The initial search yielded 334 articles, which were extracted and reviewed based on their title, abstract, and elimination of the duplicates. In total, 12 articles were obtained for the final analysis. The mean elasticity of the inputs for physicians, nurses, active beds, and other staff was 0.22, 0.55, 0.64, and 0.36, respectively. In addition, the marginal production of the factors for physicians, nurses, active beds, and other staff was 53.22, 32.56, 41.10, and 38.56, respectively. The marginal production of all the inputs was positive.

 Considering the positive marginal production of all the inputs, it is suggested that the utilization of the inputs increase due to their elasticity in order to improve efficiency, which is a priority for using active hospital bed. It is also advisable to assess various sections of each hospital rather than on a hospital level and evaluate productivity and efficiency.