[The use of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for Brazilian teaching hospitals' evaluation]

In order to demonstrate how DEA modeling can be helpful for hospital performance assessments conducted in compliance with Brazil's Teaching Hospital Policy, a case study is presented of 31 general hospitals linked to Federal Universities. It considers data on assistance, teaching and research and the use of the IDEAL (Interactive Data Envelopment Analysis Laboratory) software as a tool for assessing their efficiency. Developed in Brazil, this unique software provides a three-dimensional view of the productivity frontier, for easier exploratory analyses and selection of pertinent variables, with a better understanding of the outputs of the model (multiplier and envelope) for specialists and decision-makers. As an example, a University Hospital benchmark is presented through outputs that take structural and regional input differences into consideration. This modeling also indicates the changes required in the inefficient units (alterations to input and/or /output vectors), setting forth recommendations on public financing based on quality/efficiency.