Research Information System
47th Annual Meeting of the European Working Group on Operational Research-ORAHS-2021, Southampton, United Kingdom, 5 - 09 July 2021, pp.36-37
Shortage of critical care professionals has been a challenge during pandemic. The objective of
this study is to examine the efficiencies of intensive care unit (ICU) services in Turkey in the
age of Covid-19 pandemic. Data were gathered from the Public Hospital Statistical Year Book
for the year 2017. Analysis are presented at hospital level by comparing teaching and
non-teaching hospitals. Bootstrapped data envelopment analysis procedure was used to
gather more precise efficiency scores. Three analysis levels are incorporated into the study
such as, all public hospitals (N=100), teaching (N=53), non-teaching hospitals (N=47) and
provinces that are providing high density of ICU services through the country (N=54). Study
results reveal that average efficiency scores of ICU services obtained from teaching hospitals
(eff=0.65) is higher than non-teaching (eff=0.54) hospitals. After applying the bootstrapping
techniques, efficiency scores are significantly improved and the difference between before
and after bootstrapping results are statistically significant (p˂0.05). Province based analysis
indicates that, ICU services efficiencies are high for provinces located in southeast part of the
country and highly populated places, such as İstanbul. Evidence-based operational design
that considers the spatial distribution of health resources and effective planning of critical
care professionals are critical for efficient management of intensive care.