title: Various indicators for the assessment of hospitals' performance status: differences and similarities.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Hospitals are the most costly operational and really important units of health system because they consume about 50%-89% of total health resources. Therefore efficient use of resources could help in saving and reallocating the financial and physical resources.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to obtain an overview of hospitals' performance status by applying different techniques, to compare similarities and differences between these methods and suggest the most comprehensive and practical method of appraisal for managers and policy makers.
  
  
  METHODS
  This is a cross sectional study conducted in all hospitals of Ahvaz (eight hospitals affiliated with Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences and eight non-affiliated hospitals) during 2007 to 2011. Two kinds of data were collected through separate special checklists. Excel 2007 and Windeap 2.1 software were applied for data analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The present findings show that the average of bed occupancy rate (BOR) in the studied hospitals was about 65.91 ± 1.16. The maximum number of inefficient hospitals in the present study happened in the years 2007, 2008 and 2010 (four hospitals) but there were two hospitals in the third part of the present graph which had maximum level of efficiency and optimal level of productivity in the years 2007 and 2009. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) showed that the mean score of technical efficiency for the studied hospitals is 0.924 ± 0.105 with the minimum of 0.585 ± 0.905 for hospital number 1. Furthermore It shows that only five hospitals (31.25%) reach complete technical efficiency (TE) scores across all five years of 2007-11 (TE = 1).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results of the present and similar studies should be considered for the future planning and resource allocation of Iranian public hospitals. At the same time it is very important to consider need assessment results for each region according to its potentials, population under the coverage and other geographical and cultural indices. Furthermore because of potential limitations of each of the above models it is highly recommended to apply different methods of performance evaluation to reach a complete and real status view of the hospitals for future planning.
authors.affiliation: School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Farhad
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lotfi
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Health Information Management, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, IR Iran ; Department of Health Service Management, School of Public Health, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Rohollah
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kalhor
authors.affiliation: School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Peivand
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bastani
authors.affiliation: School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran ; Health Management and Economics Research Center, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Nasrin
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shaarbafchi Zadeh
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Health Services Management, Institute of Futures Studies in Health, School of Management and Medical Information Science, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, IR Iran ; Treatment Deputy, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Maryam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Eslamian
authors.affiliation: Education Development Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad Reza
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Dehghani
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Service Management, School of Public Health, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Mohamad Zakaria
authors.initials: MZ
authors.lastname: Kiaee
keywords: DEA; Hospital Performance; Malmquist Index; Pabon Lasso