Financing and management: the technical efficiency in public health expenditures of small-scale municipalities in the state of Santa Catarina

In a context of budget constraints and fiscal austerity measures, the discussion of issues related to the efficient management of public resources is a major challenge. The scope of this study was to assess the technical efficiency of municipalities of the State of Santa Catarina in public health expenditures and its relationship with health management conditions in the years 2009 and 2015. In order to measure efficiency, the decision was made to use Data Envelopment Analysis. The G Index was used to analyze the spatial efficiency autocorrelation. For the evaluation of the conditions for health management, the model proposed by Calvo et al. was adopted. Of the total number of municipalities analyzed, 35.5% and 29% were considered efficient, for the years 2009 and 2015, respectively. The results suggest that there is no association between the conditions for health management and technical efficiency in the State of Santa Catarina. The study revealed the need to move forward in the quest for better results in terms of efficiency in the State of Santa Catarina, taking into consideration the spatial distribution of these results over the territory, focusing on clusters of inefficiency that may explain the poor performance in health of some regions of the state.