Inefficiency of public hospitals: a multistage data envelopment analysis in an Italian region.

Background: The objective of this study was to assess public hospital efficiency, including quality outputs, inefficiency determinants, and changes to efficiency over time, in an Italian region. To achieve this aim, the study used secondary data from the Veneto region for the years 2018 and 2019.

Methods: A nonparametric approach-that is, multistage data envelopment analysis (DEA)-was applied to a sample of 43 hospitals.