RESUMEN
Objective:To analyze the efficiency of medical resource utilization in public traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) hospitals in Gansu province from 2016 to 2020, so as to provide decision-making reference.Methods:The number of in-service staff, actual number of open beds, number of diagnosis and treatment, and number of discharge from TCM hospitals in Gansu province from 2016 to 2020 were extracted, and their technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency, scale efficiency, and returns to scale were analyzed by data envelopment analysis.Results:From 2016 to 2020, the average technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency, and scale efficiency of the sample hospitals were 0.647, 0.680, and 0.952, respectively. Among them, 213 hospitals (48.2%) were in a decreasing state of returns to scale, 54 hospitals (12.2%) were in a constant state of returns to scale, and 175 hospitals (39.6%) were in an increasing state of returns to scale; Out of the 45 tertiary hospitals, 42 (93.3%) were in the stage of diminishing returns to scale, while 226 (56.9%) of 397 secondary and lower hospitals were in a state of constant or increasing returns to scale.Conclusions:The utilization efficiency of medical resources in public TCM hospitals in Gansu province is relatively low, and there is a significant gap between different levels of TCM hospitals.