ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1636769
This article is part of the Research TopicPublic Health Outcomes: The Role of Social Security Systems in Improving Residents' Health WelfareView all 78 articles
Evaluating the operational efficiency of the compact urban medical group in Qiqihar based on the three-stage DEA and Malmquist Index Model
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Nursing, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
- 2Nursing Department, The People's Hospital of Suzhou New District, Suzhou, China
- 3Zhuhai People's Hospital (The Affiliated Hospital of Beijing Institute of Technology, Zhuhai Clinical Medical College of Jinan University), Zhuhai, China
- 4Institute for Hospital Management of Henan Province, Zhengzhou, China
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Background Since the establishment of medical alliances, a key issue regarding their ability to better address the imbalance in China's medical resources lies in the changes in operational efficiency before and after their formation. This study focuses on urban medical groups, a reform model of medical alliances, and systematically analyzes the changes in operational efficiency before and after the group-based reform, aiming to provide empirical evidence for improving the group-based management model.This study employs a dual-method framework combining three-stage DEA for static efficiency evaluation and Malmquist index analysis for dynamic assessment.Data from 14 medical institutions inform the analysis, utilizing three carefully selected input and three output variables to comprehensively evaluate resource allocation patterns within the medical consortium.The first-stage DEA evaluation of Qiqihar's 14 medical institutions reveals baseline efficiency scores with comprehensive efficiency at 0.839, pure technical efficiency at 0.950, and scale efficiency at 0.882. SFA regression identifies regional GDP as positively influencing operational performance while population density and fiscal appropriations demonstrate negative effects. After adjusting for environmental variables and random disturbances in the third-stage analysis, the recalculated efficiency metrics show significant changes. The adjusted comprehensive efficiency declines to 0.774, reflecting more accurate performance measurement after accounting for external factors. Meanwhile, pure technical efficiency improves to 0.971, suggesting strong managerial performance when isolated from environmental constraints. Scale efficiency decreases to 0.800, indicating suboptimal operational size remains a persistent challenge.resource distribution, economic conditions, population characteristics, and varying medical needs to determine appropriate operational scales and infrastructure development. Health authorities should enhance coordination among medical groups by breaking institutional barriers and promoting resource sharing to create synergistic collaborations that improve overall service quality and efficiency. Continuous infrastructure improvements remain essential for meeting evolving public healthcare demands while maintaining optimal service delivery standards.
Keywords: DEA, Malmquist, urban medical group, Efficiency, Influencing factors
Received: 28 May 2025; Accepted: 28 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xing, Tian, Wang, Liu, Tao, Lin, Zhou, Wang and Bai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xue Bai, School of Nursing, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
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