EXPLORING OUTPUT QUALITY TARGETS IN THE PROVISION OF PERINATAL-CARE IN ENGLAND USING DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS

This paper explores the use of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to asse ss units providing perinatal care in England and estimate performance targets for them. DEA is a modelling methodology for deriving the rela tive efficiency of units where there are multiple incommensurate input s and outputs. The paper proposes a plausible set of inputs and output s for perinatal care in which the output set incorporates both activit y levels and quality measures. The incorporation of quality measures i nto the input-output set leads to a requirement for extensions to the basic DEA models to allow for weight restrictions and varying preferen ces over potential improvements to different quality measures. The pap er illustrates the use of such models using realistic data on perinata l care provision in England.