Abstract
Objective: this study aimed to develop a technology for evaluating the hospital production system, making it possible to diagnose performance and generate initiatives for improvement and innovation. Method: this is a theoretical-empirical study carried out in four hospitals in the South-Southeast of Brazil. As for the technology generated, it was based on the tool developed by NIEPC/UFSC. Furthermore, based on a set of selected input and output variables and data collected on DATA-SUS, five models were generated with DEA to assess the productive efficiency of the selected hospitals. Theoretical foundation: key concepts about Operational Research (OR) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and their use in the health area and within hospital organizations. Results: the proposed instrument revealed to be capable of unveiling interactions between the constitutive and representative areas of the hospital production system, pointing out potential improvement actions, in line with the complex thinking inherent in this type of management. Conclusions: the developed technology made it possible to increase the perceptual range of the people involved, helping them to understand that the actions need to be integrated so that the competitiveness factors can be achieved.
KEYWORDS: Management technology, hospital management, Data Envelopment Analysis, competitiveness, performance.