Abstract
Background: Low utilization of care resources in China continues to be a challenging problem even though the rapid development of pension services. However, few studies have explored the utilization of care services with either the production of nursing homes at a national and longitudinal level. Methods: The present study analyzes the spatio-temporal distribution of TE and productivity of nursing homes by using the data from China Civil Affairs statistical yearbook (2012-2016). Analysis was conducted based on the Data Envelopment Analysis and Tobit model, which have been widely applied to integrate several quality measures as a comprehensive benchmark. Results: The average TE, PTE and SE of nursing homes were 0.909. 0.928 and 0.979 from 2012 to 2016, respectively. The TE and SE decreased from 2012 to 2014, but improved after 2014. TE is 0.98 in the Eastern region, 0.93 of that in the Central region and 0.91 of that in the Western region, with a decrease range of 2%, 7% and 9%, respectively. The average improvement range of the five input indexes of the non-DEA effective nursing homes was 27.26%, 20.62%, 19.77%, 22.04%, and 38.84%, respectively. The influencing factors of efficiency value of nursing homes indicated that if there are more social workers, more patients in the nursing homes, and more employees who are aged 56 and above, the TE and productivity of nursing homes will be higher.Conclusion: We find that TE of nursing homes in Western regions are all at the lowest, as the current facilities can neither provide equitable nor optimal access and utilization. The decline of the efficiency and productivity before the healthcare reform implementation in 2014 was significant, where the influencing factors could be age and gender of employees, the number of social workers, and older people. Finally, suggestions are put forward for improving the efficiency of allocation and utilization of care services.
Activity and rest alternation: temporal distribution and influencing factors in nocturnal rodents