EVALUATING THE EFFICIENCY OF HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENTS OF IRANIAN MEDICAL UNIVERSITIES USING DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS DURING 2011

Introduction: Efficiency evaluation is a fundamental necessity with respect to confronting and facing evolutions in order to improve activities. Considering that one of the main indices for assessing the development of a country is currently its share in producing knowledge, evaluating the performance of educational units and their efficiency is necessary. We aimed to study the efficiency of health information technology departments of medical universities using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. Materials & Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study we used the mathematical model of DEA using the Deap2.1 software for evaluating the efficiency of health information technology departments of Iranian medical universities during 2011. To gather data, a researcher-made form was designed including information on the number of students, faculty members, number of written books and translations by faculty members, research papers, etc. Results: The results showed that of 18 educational departments, 6 departments were efficient and 12 departments were inefficient. Optimal and ideal values were determined for ineffective groups in order to achieve efficiency. Conclusion: To achieve maximum efficiency (=1), departments should increase their research output through more research projects, articles or books. These departments should establish a long-term program to reduce training inputs (students) and its funds based on the specified surplus amount.