EFICIENCIA DE LOS CENTROS DE ATENCIÓN PRIMARIA DE SALUD EN UNA CIUDAD INTERMEDIA DE ARGENTINA.

Since in Argentina the Primary Health Care Centers (CAPS) are financed by public funds, the analysis of their efficiency becomes relevant in order to propose improvements in their performance. In this work, DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) is applied to evaluate the technical efficiency of CAPS operating in a city in the interior of Argentina. For this, the CAPS are grouped according to the available specialties (nursing, medical clinic and pediatrics) and the following are used: a DEA BCC (Banker, Charnes y Cooper) output oriented model and a Super-efficiency model to evaluate the technical efficiency in each group. The results differ between the groups. In the CAPS that offer the 3 specialties, most are efficient. On the contrary, in the CAPS that have an infirmary and a medical clinic, as well as those that only have an infirmary, most of the CAPS are considered inefficient. It is concluded that it is possible to improve the efficiency in the use of public resources assigned to the first level of care in the city, based on the increase in the number of consultations or the reduction in the number of working hours, which would allow improving the access to health care for the most vulnerable population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]