Hospitals Responsiveness to Pandemic

 COVID-19 outbreak has direct effect on both health and economy. on one side it is taking lives, and on another side it is causing economic recession especially in health products across the globe. thus, containing the outbreak of this virus, and ensuring the efficient utilization of resources is the need of time. 

therefore, the aim of this project is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on economic efficiency of hospitals and to suggest optimum allocation of hospitals resources in pandemic. 

the outcome of this project will help stake holders to use limited national resources efficiently in pandemic, and as result maximum number of patients will be treated with minimum health resources.

Besides, taking lives more than hundreds of thousands in a short time,  COVID-19 pandemic has produced economic recession across the globe. in order to contain the effect of this pandemic, developed as well as developing nations are spending in millions of dollars on research for producing vaccine,  equipment/supplies and medical personnel for hospitals. 

Pakistan has also been facing outbreak for last three months, and reported cases are 160,118 till date (source: Government of Pakistan, retrieved: covid. gov.pk). Pakistan is a developing country with a population more than 200 million (2018 Census). the previous economic growth of the country was below 3%, however the pandemic has further worsen it. the country has reported  negative economic growth (-0.2%) (economic survey of Pakistan, 2019-20) . inn order to finance the deficit budget, Pakistan is dependent on loans from IMF and World Bank. Due to this economic position, resources should be utilized optimally to combat COVID-19 outbreak. 

Thus, this project will  analyse COVID-19 effect on economic efficiency of hospitals and an effective policy measures will be suggested  on the basis of empirical findings of this project. 

A balanced panel data on hospitals' resources (inputs) and on patient served (output) will be obtained from hospitals where corona infected patients are treated. the data will be analysed using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and efficiency scores will be obtained. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) as a non-parametric mathematical programming approach to frontier estimation which uses linear programming to sketch a boundary function (efficient frontier) to observed data for relatively homogeneous organizations.

this analysis will help us in understanding the effect of COVID-19 outbreak on economic efficiency of hospitals. it will also enable us to suggest a policy for optimum allocation of resources in hospitals during pandemic in order to provide the public maximum health facilities and to avoid the wastage of resources.

this project will help to ;

1. improve hospitals capacity of both public as well as private sectors at lowest possible cost
2. save the national resources which might be allocated to other government's social welfare programs
3. treat maximum number of patients with minimum resources

the aim of government is to enhance public health using minimum national resources. however, exogenous shocks, i.e. current pandemic not only effects public health but also causes economic recession. thus in situation, efficient allocation of resources are needed to save many lives with constrained resources. 

thus,  this project will sketch the effect of pandemic on economic efficiency of hospitals, and it will further help in solution of optimal allocation of resources during pandemic.  

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to comparatively analyse the economic and social measures taken by countries to contain COVID-19

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1. Dr. Saeed Anwar is Professional Health Experts.  he has completed several national and international projects and currently working as Professor of Community Health Sciences at PRIME Foundation, Pakistan.
2. Dr. Muhammad Irfan is Professional Psychiatrist with PhD in Psychiatry and Director Research at PRIME Foundation, Pakistan. 
3.  Rahat Sher Khan, Research Officer at PRIME Foundation, Pakistan.