Portuguese Primary Healthcare and Prevention Quality Indicators for Diabetes Mellitus – A Data Envelopment Analysis

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 MEDCIDS - Department of Community Medicine, Information and Health Decision Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

2 CINTESIS - Centre for Health Technology and Services Research, Porto, Portugal

3 USF Camélias, ACES Gaia (Grande Porto VII - ARS Norte), Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal

Abstract

Background 
Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a worldwide public health priority. The increasing prevalence and the budget constraints force to have effective healthcare, especially at the primary healthcare (PHC) level. We aim to assess primary care efficiency considering the best use of human resources to produce optimal diabetes care in terms of prevention quality indicators (PQIs) rates across national ACES (health centre groupings).
 
Methods 
We conducted a two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess the technical efficiency of 54 Portuguese primary care health centre groupings for the 2016-2017 biennium. In the first stage, efficiency scores were obtained through five output-oriented DEA models under vector return to scale (VRS) assumption, using three input variables representing key primary care human resources and one output representing each one of the five PQIs related to diabetes. In the second stage, Tobit regression models were estimated to assess the determinants of primary care efficiency in diabetes care.

Results 
A total of 13 ACES reached the efficiency frontier. Better managing human resources could reduce PQI rates by 52.3% in 2016 and 49.1% in 2017. Higher proportion of patients under 65 years old and better controlled with a hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) ≤6.5% were associated with better efficiency in diabetes care, whereas higher prevalence of DM and unemployment worsened hospitalizations rates by diabetes short-term complications and lower-extremity amputation.
 
Conclusion 
Inefficiency in DM care was found in most of the primary care settings which can substantially improve the avoidable hospitalization rates by DM using their current level human resources. These findings help to improve diabetes care by targeting human resources at primary care level, which should be integrated into performance assessments considering broader and integrated scopes.

Keywords

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International Journal of Health Policy and Management
Volume 11, Issue 9
September 2022
Pages 1725-1734

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History

  • Receive Date: 06 January 2021
  • Revise Date: 07 June 2021
  • Accept Date: 26 June 2021
  • First Publish Date: 26 July 2021

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