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The impact of policy on hospital productivity: a time series analysis of Dutch hospitals

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Abstract

The health care industry, in particular the hospital industry, is under an increasing degree of pressure, by an ageing population, advancing expensive medical technology a shrinking labor. The pressure on hospitals is further increased by the planned budget cuts in public spending by many current administrations as a result of the economic and financial crises. However, productivity increases may alleviate these problems. Therefore we study whether productivity in the hospital sector is growing, and whether this productivity growth can be influenced by government policy. Using an econometric time series analysis of the hospital sector in the Netherlands, productivity is estimated for the period 1972–2010. Then, productivity is linked to the different regulation regimes during that period, ranging from output funding in the 1970s to the current liberalized hospital market. The results indicate that the average productivity of the hospital sector in different periods differs and that these differences are related to the structure of regulation in those periods.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Vivian Valdmanis for her useful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Further we would like to say thanks to our colleague Alex van Heezik for all his efforts in collecting the data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Delft University of Technology/Erasmus University Rotterdam, PO Box 5015, 2600 GA, Delft, The Netherlands

    Jos L. T. Blank

  2. The Netherlands Institute for Social Research, PO Box 16164, 2500 BD, The Hague, The Netherlands

    Evelien Eggink

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  1. Jos L. T. Blank
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  2. Evelien Eggink
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Correspondence to Jos L. T. Blank.

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Blank, J.L.T., Eggink, E. The impact of policy on hospital productivity: a time series analysis of Dutch hospitals. Health Care Manag Sci 17, 139–149 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10729-013-9257-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10729-013-9257-8

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