Abstract
This study analyzes the performance of 25 DHQs hospitals of the Punjab province of Pakistan, during the two time periods i.e. 2006- 2010 (pre-decentralization era) and 2011-2015 (post-decentralization era). Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been used to estimate the economic efficiency (EE) of DHQs for the above mentioned two time periods. Our empirical results indicate that the average level of EE of 25 DHQs increased from 0.57 in the first period to 0.67 in the second period. An improvement in the performance of 76% of hospitals has been noted after the decentralization.