Date of Award

8-30-2022

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation - Open Access

Degree Name

Doctor of Public Health

Department

Public Health

First Advisor

Dr. Adam Block

Second Advisor

Dr. Kenneth Knapp

Third Advisor

Dr. Naser Al-Sabti

Abstract

The healthcare sector in the State of Kuwait has been nurtured for many decades by the government, where the majority of health services in the country are controlled by the Ministry of Health (MoH). Although healthcare services in public sector hospitals are at highly subsidized rates, causing private sector involvement in healthcare to be considerably low, the growing demands for private delivery of care burgeoned participation of private hospitals in Kuwait, and improving hospital efficiency and productivity is more critical and timelier than ever. This dissertation aims to analyze public health system efficiency and hospital performance in the State of Kuwait using data envelopment analysis (DEA) techniques; where we begin by evaluating the input-oriented technical efficiency (TE) of MoH hospitals in 2015-2019 and identifying potential areas for efficiency improvement by exploring influencing institutional and environmental factors. We further conduct an output-oriented comparative study of public-private productivity in view of ownership, hospital management, and other external variables to understand drivers of productive efficiency and potential factors of output maximization disparities in 2019/2020.

Share

COinS