title: Technical efficiency and resources allocation in university hospitals in Tehran, 2009-2012.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Assessment of hospitals' performance in achieving its goals is a basic necessity. Measuring the efficiency of hospitals in order to boost resource productivity in healthcare organizations is extremely important. The aim of this study was to measure technical efficiency and determining status of resource allocation in some university hospitals, in Tehran, Iran.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study was conducted in 2012; the research population consisted of all hospitals affiliated to Iran and Tehran medical sciences universities of. Required data, such as human and capital resources information and also production variables (hospital outputs) were collected from data centers of studied hospitals. Data were analyzed using data envelopment analysis (DEA) method, Deap2,1 software; and the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) method, Frontier 4,1 software.
  
  
  RESULTS
  According to DEA method, average of technical, management (pure) and scale efficiency of the studied hospitals during the study period were calculated 0.87, 0.971, and 0.907, respectively. All kinds of efficiency did not follow a fixed trend over the study time and were constantly changing. In the stochastic frontier's production function analysis, the technical efficiency of the studied industry during the study period was estimated to be 0.389.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study represented hospitals with the highest and lowest efficiency. Reference hospitals (more efficient states) were indicated for the inefficient centers. According to the findings, it was found that in the hospitals that do not operate efficiently, there is a capacity to improve the technical efficiency by removing excess inputs without changes in the level of outputs. However, by the optimal allocation of resources in most studied hospitals, very important economy of scale can be achieved.
authors.affiliation: PhD, Assistant Professor of Health Economics, Department of Health Economics, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, and Health Management and Economics Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. rezapoor_a57@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Aziz
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rezapour
authors.affiliation: PhD, Professor of Health Management, Health Management and Economics Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. dr_febadi@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Farbod
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ebadifard Azar
authors.affiliation: MSc in Health Management, Department of Health Services Management and Economics, Faculty of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. yousefi.negar@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Negar
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Yousef Zadeh
authors.affiliation: MSc in Educational Planning, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. roomiani2001@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: YarAllah
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Roumiani
authors.affiliation: PhD candidate in Health Economics, Department of Health Economics, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. s.bagheri88@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Saeed
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bagheri Faradonbeh
keywords: Data envelopment analysis; Resource allocation; Stochastic frontier analysis; Technical efficiency