Evaluation of utilization and efficacy of general hospitals in Serbia: is there a shift forward?

INTRODUCTION In the Republic of Serbia the activity of general hospitals has not been sufficiently evaluated. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate, by analyzing the basic indicators of general hospitals condition and functioning, the network, utilization and efficacy of general hospitals for further improvement of their organization and work. METHODS The paper is a part of a retrospective-prospective analysis of hospital healthcare services which we performed in 2011. The research involved all 40 general hospitals in Serbia evaluated as a general hospitals system. We selected seven basic indicators of hospitals condition and functioning that we followed-up in the period 2000-2009. As the data source we used the Reports of the Office for Hospital Stationary Treatment of general hospitals and the Report of the Republican Institution for Statistics entitled Vital Events in the Republic of Serbia. Numerical data were analyzed using the methods of descriptive statistics and the program Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and SPSS for Windows. Statistical significance indicators of differences were determined by Student's t-test. RESULTS In general hospitals during the studied years, the number of beds decreased by 16.5% (p(t)=0.057). The number of discharged patients was increased by 11.8% (p(t)=0.035). The number of hospitalization days was reduced by 11.2% (p(t)=0.038).The average length of treatment was reduced by 1.9 days (p(t)=0.074). The average daily bed occupancy was increased by 4% (p(t)=0.020). The utilization of beds was increased by 4.5% (p(t)=0.019). Throughput capacity of beds increased by 8.5 patients per bed or by 27.8% (p(t)=0.091). CONCLUSION The most significant indicators of the utilization and efficacy of general hospitals were improved. Nevertheless, European and domestic guidelines were achieved only in the average length of treatment.