The Health Sector in Jordan: Effectiveness and Efficiency

Abstract

This paper compares a homogeneous group of countries in terms of capacity and technology, where we picked income as indicator for capacity and technology. We study the case of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. We apply radical data envelopment analysis to 36 middle income countries where we calculate constant returns to scale technical efficiency and variable returns to scale technical efficiency to show the health care sector efficiency in Jordan. Using different factors for input first we studied healthcare expenditure per capita then as percent of GDP and public expenditure as percent of GDP and private as percent of GDP, and last was the number of beds per 1000 population and physicians per 1000 population all to the same output life expectancy. The results show that there is inefficiency in health care expenditure. The inefficiency mainly is shown by two major findings, first the lack of utilization of resources. Secondly, the public-sector inefficiency. The output is justifiable for many challenges faced the health sector in the year of the study one of which is the Syrian refuges crisis. We shed light on factors causing the inefficiency where modifications could yield substantial efficiency gains. As for the mix between public and private sectors and the quality and utilization and distribution of the real resources, nevertheless adding health economists to the management staff for there is a managerial inefficiency.