Abstract:

The efficiency of the health system is one of the issues discussed frequently in recent years. It requires us to question whether resources are utilized effectively or not since health expenditures are in the increasing trend. The purpose of this study is to perform the analysis of the efficiency of health systems in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries. Firstly, the variables used to assess the efficiency of the health system have been identified with a comprehensive literature search. After some health expenditure variables determined as input, some health status indicators determined as output, the efficiency analysis of 34 OECD countries for both 2000 and 2013 years have been carried out with Data Envelopment analysis (DEA). In addition, the countries have been evaluated as a result of the Mahalanobis distance and decreased to 27 countries, on the final stage of analysis the countries have been re-analyzed. While the number of the effective countries is 15 in 2000 from 34 OECD member countries, the number of the effective countries has been decreased to 13 in 2013. Countries should benefit from each other’s experiences as well as developing their own models to achieve effectiveness in the health care system.

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