BENCHMARKING FOR PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT: A HEALTH‐CARE APPLICATION*
开发了一种方法，用于比较缅因州酒精滥用治疗机构的绩效，通过维纳过程模型区分治疗效果和患者群体差异，发现转移成本效益更高的机构做法可降低治疗成本而不损害健康结果。
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, costs 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.