A data envelopment analysis model for the efficiency measurement of facilities providing oral and dental health services: The case of Istanbul

In this study, a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model is proposed to measure the efficiency of facilities providing oral and dental health services. For this purpose, a Weight Restricted DEA Model (WR-DEA) is constructed in which decision makers' preferences can be reflected in the model. The Basic DEA Model (B-DEA), based on the assumption that all outputs are of equal importance, is used for comparison purposes. Analysis results of the facilities connected to the Ministry of Health in Istanbul, Turkey reveal that WR-DEA provides more realistic and selective results than B-DEA. In addition, when the efficiency performance of the facilities is examined, it is seen that the performance of the large-scale facilities such as Oral and Dental Health Centers (ODHC) and Oral and Dental Health Hospitals (ODHH) is much higher than the facilities providing small-scale facilities such as Training and Research Hospitals (TRH) and State Hospitals (SH). These results indicate that facility size is an important factor for the efficiency performance for oral and dental health services.