Reports

Measuring the relative performance of providers of a health service

Machado, Matilde P.; Riordan, Michael H.; Ackerberg, Daniel A.

A methodology is developed and applied to compare the performance of publicly funded agencies providing treatment for alcohol abuse in Maine. The methodology estimates a Wiener process that determines the duration of completed treatments, while allowing for agency differences in the effectiveness of treatment, standards for completion of treatment, patient attrition, and the characteristics of patient populations. Notably, the Wiener process model separately identifies agency fixed effects that describe differences in the effectiveness of treatment ('treatment effects'), and effects that describe differences in the unobservable characteristics of patients ('population effects'). The estimated model enables hypothetical comparisons of how different agencies would treat the same populations. The policy experiment of transferring the treatment practices of more cost effective agencies suggests that Maine could have significantly reduced treatment costs without compromising health outcomes by identifying and transferring best practices.

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More About This Work

Academic Units
Economics
Publisher
Department of Economics, Columbia University
Series
Department of Economics Discussion Papers, 0102-12
Published Here
March 22, 2011

Notes

February 2002