Evaluating emergency physicians: data envelopment analysis approach.

The purpose of this research is to develop an evaluation tool to assess performance of Emergency Physicians according to such criteria as resource utilization, patient throughput and the quality of care. Evaluation is conducted using a mathematical programming model known as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Use of this model does not require the subjective assignment of weights associated with each criterion - a feature typical of methodologies that rely on composite scores. The DEA model presented in this paper was developed using a hypothetical data set describing a representative set of profiles of Emergency Physicians. The solution to the model relates the performance of each Emergency Physician in relation to the others and to a benchmark. We discuss how such an evaluation tool can be used in practice.