EFFICIENCY IN ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES DENTAL LABS - ASSESSING THE NEED FOR PRIVATIZING PUBLICLY PROVIDED SERVICES

In the last 10 to 15 years, privatization has been used as a policy in strument to reduce the involvement of the public sector in the provisi on of a variety of services, The purpose of this paper is to discuss m odels of privatization in the dental technician market and to report o n the findings of an analysis of the functioning and efficiency of suc h services within the framework of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). We also develop a method for assessing the quality and efficiency with w hich such services are produced and assess the need for privatization of the service, Currently, the IDF employs a mixed model of privatizat ion whereby some dental technician services are produced in-house and others are contracted out to the civilian private market, A comparativ e quantitative analysis of the efficiency, quality, and cost of servic es indicates that the civilian labs are able to produce prosthetic ser vices at a lower cost per unit of output and at a higher level of qual ity than are the IDF labs, The highly competitive nature of the indust ry as well as the relative ease with which the IDF could monitor the q uality of service further supports the case for privatization of the e ntire service, The analysis and method described in this paper can ser ve as a paradigm for evaluating dental technician services in a variet y of settings.