Multidimensional performance assessment of public sector organisations using dominance criteria

TY - JOUR

T1 - Multidimensional performance assessment of public sector organisations using dominance criteria

AU - Gutacker, Nils

AU - Street, Andrew David

N1 - © 2017 The Authors

PY - 2018/2/1

Y1 - 2018/2/1

N2 - Public sector organisations pursue multiple objectives and serve a number of stakeholders. But stakeholders are rarely explicit about the valuations they attach to different objectives, nor are these valuations likely to be identical. This complicates the assessment of their performance because no single set of weights can be chosen legitimately to aggregate outputs into unidimensional composite scores. We propose the use of dominance criteria in a multidimensional performance assessment framework to identify best practice and poor performance under relatively weak assumptions about stakeholders' preferences. We use as an example providers of hip replacement surgery in the English National Health Service and estimate multivariate multilevel models to study their performance in terms of length of stay, readmission rates, post-operative patient-reported health status and waiting time. We find substantial correlation between objectives and demonstrate that ignoring the correlation can lead to incorrect assessments of performance.

AB - Public sector organisations pursue multiple objectives and serve a number of stakeholders. But stakeholders are rarely explicit about the valuations they attach to different objectives, nor are these valuations likely to be identical. This complicates the assessment of their performance because no single set of weights can be chosen legitimately to aggregate outputs into unidimensional composite scores. We propose the use of dominance criteria in a multidimensional performance assessment framework to identify best practice and poor performance under relatively weak assumptions about stakeholders' preferences. We use as an example providers of hip replacement surgery in the English National Health Service and estimate multivariate multilevel models to study their performance in terms of length of stay, readmission rates, post-operative patient-reported health status and waiting time. We find substantial correlation between objectives and demonstrate that ignoring the correlation can lead to incorrect assessments of performance.

KW - multidimensional

KW - multilevel modelling

KW - performance assessment

KW - provider classification

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85044456604&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/hec.3554

DO - 10.1002/hec.3554

M3 - Article

C2 - 28833902

SN - 1057-9230

VL - 27

SP - e13-e27

JO - Health Economics

JF - Health Economics

IS - 2

ER -