Abstract
BackgroundWhile the demand for health services keep escalating at the grass roots or rural areas of China, a substantial portion of healthcare resources remain stagnant in the more developed cities and this has entrenched health inequity in many parts of China. At its conception, China’s Deepen Medical Reform started in 2012 was intended to flush out possible disparities and promote a more equitable and efficient distribution of healthcare resources. Nearly half a decade of this reform, there are uncertainties as to whether the attainment of the objectives of the reform is in sight.MethodsUsing a hybrid of panel data analysis and an augmented data envelopment analysis (DEA), we model human resources, material, finance to determine their technical and scale efficiency to comprehensively evaluate the transverse and longitudinal allocation efficiency of community health resources in Jiangsu Province.ResultsWe observed that the Deepen Medical Reform in China has led to an increase concern to ensure efficient allocation of community health resources by health policy makers in the province. This has led to greater efficiency in health resource allocation in Jiangsu in general but serious regional or municipal disparities still exist. Using the DEA model, we note that the output from the Community Health Centers does not commensurate with the substantial resources (human resources, materials, and financial) invested in them. We further observe that the case is worst in less-developed Northern parts of Jiangsu Province.ConclusionsThe government of Jiangsu Province could improve the efficiency of health resource allocation by improving the community health service system, rationalizing the allocation of health personnel, optimizing the allocation of material resources, and enhancing the level of health of financial resource allocation.
Highlights
While the demand for health services keep escalating at the grass roots or rural areas of China, a substantial portion of healthcare resources remain stagnant in the more developed cities and this has entrenched health inequity in many parts of China
Data collection There are many community health centers (CHCs) in Jiangsu Province, but this study sampled data from 75 CHCs distributed in the three zones under review
The 75 CHCs were chosen because they fall within the research jurisdiction of the Institute of Medical Insurance and Hospital Management (IMIHM) of the Jiangsu University where this study was conducted
Summary
While the demand for health services keep escalating at the grass roots or rural areas of China, a substantial portion of healthcare resources remain stagnant in the more developed cities and this has entrenched health inequity in many parts of China. The global effort to eradicate extreme inequity in socioeconomic and health wellbeing of all mankind especially those living on the fringes of society is evident in the numerous social intervention policies that have been rolled out by the United Nations and other international organizations [1] These initiatives include the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and the 2011 Rio Summit on the Social Determinants of Health. China achieved universal health insurance coverage in 2011, representing the largest expansion of insurance coverage in human history This success was attained because the government’s renewed commitment for better healthcare reform enjoyed strong public support across China [2]. In this connection, both the central government
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