Song Qianwen, Ye Anyu, Zhou Mengting, Chen Ting, Jiang Wenlian
Chengdu Shuangliu District Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Chengdu, China.
School of Pharmaceutical Economics and Management, Anhui University of Chinese Medicine, Hefei, China.
Front Public Health. 2025 Apr 3;13:1556737. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1556737. eCollection 2025.
Hospital service efficiency is a vital indicator of the effectiveness of a country's healthcare system. If regional heterogeneity is ignored in measuring the efficiency of health services, erroneous judgments may result.
This study utilized the Meta-Frontier Slack-Based Measure (SBM) model to evaluate the efficiency of hospital services across various Chinese provinces from 2009 to 2022. Efficiency comparisons were made using regional and common frontiers, while the technical gap and its decomposition index were applied to identify the sources of efficiency disparities among regions. The Spatial Durbin Model was then employed to analyze the spatial spillover effects of hospital service efficiency.
The findings reveal that under the common frontier, the Central South regions demonstrate the highest efficiency, averaging 0.7549, followed by East China at 0.7184, the Southwest at 0.6245, the Northwest at 0.5497, North China at 0.4884, and the Northeast at 0.3571. Technical disparities among China's regional hospital services form three distinct tiers: the first tier includes Central South China, the second tier comprises the Southwest, Northwest, and North China, and the third tier is the Northeast. Management inefficiency predominantly affects the first tier, whereas both management and technical inefficiencies impact the second and third tiers. Furthermore, hospital service efficiency has significant spatial spillover effects, notably enhancing the efficiency of neighboring provinces.
To enhance healthcare service efficiency, it is imperative to implement precise identification of technological and managerial deficiencies, coupled with the formulation of long-term strategic plans adaptive to demographic shifts and evolving healthcare demands, while simultaneously strengthening crisis management capabilities to ensure the stability and sustainability of service efficacy.
医院服务效率是衡量一个国家医疗体系有效性的重要指标。在衡量卫生服务效率时若忽视区域异质性，可能会导致错误判断。
本研究利用Meta前沿松弛测度（SBM）模型评估2009年至2022年中国各省份医院服务的效率。使用区域前沿和共同前沿进行效率比较，同时应用技术差距及其分解指数来确定区域间效率差异的来源。然后采用空间杜宾模型分析医院服务效率的空间溢出效应。
研究结果显示，在共同前沿下，中南地区效率最高，平均为0.7549，其次是华东地区，为0.7184，西南地区为0.6245，西北地区为0.5497，华北地区为0.4884，东北地区为0.3571。中国区域医院服务的技术差距形成三个不同层次：第一层包括中南地区，第二层包括西南、西北和华北地区，第三层是东北地区。管理无效率主要影响第一层，而管理和技术无效率均影响第二层和第三层。此外，医院服务效率具有显著的空间溢出效应，尤其能提高邻近省份的效率。
为提高医疗服务效率，必须精准识别技术和管理缺陷，制定适应人口结构变化和不断演变的医疗需求的长期战略规划，同时加强危机管理能力，以确保服务效能的稳定性和可持续性。
