Measuring the performances of Medical Diagnostic Laboratories based on interval efficiencies

The classic data envelopment analysis (DEA) models have overlooked the intermediate products, internal interactions and the absence of data certainty; and deal with analyzing the network within the “Black Box” mode. This results in the loss of important information and at times a considerable modification occurs in efficiency results. In this paper, a Three-stage network model is considered with additional inputs and undesirable outputs and obtains the efficiency of the network, as interval efficiency in presence of the imprecise datum. The proposed model simulates the internal structure of a diagnostic lab (the pre-test, the test and the post-test). In this study, the criteria for evaluation are obtained by using the Fuzzy Delphi method. Due to the social, economic and environmental problems of health care organizations, the importance of sustainability criteria is evident in the case study indicators. We utilized the multiplicative DEA approach to measure the efficiency of a general system and a heuristic technique was used to convert non-linear models into linear models. Ultimately, this paper concentrates on the interval efficiency to rank the units.

Keywords:

Network DEA , Medical Diagnostic Laboratories , Sustainability , Imprecise data , Additional inputs , Undesirable outputs