There have been several studies using DEA technique to measure the effects of size or IT on hospital
efficiency. Register and Bruning (1987) found that small hospitals tend to have higher efficiency in
hospital care compared with the large ones for U.S. hospitals. Ferrier and Valdmanis (1996) found that
large and small hospitals are relatively more efficient in production and in the utilization of inputs than
medium-sized hospitals for rural U.S. hospitals. The analysis of McCallion et al. (1999) found that larger
hospitals display higher efficiency in terms of cost, input employment, and productivity for hospitals in
Northern Ireland. IT impact on hospital efficiency was analyzed by Lee and Menon (2000) in their study
of IT contributions to efficiency of U.S. hospitals. The results showed that hospitals that are highly
technically efficient use a greater amount of IT capital compared with those that have low technical
efficiency.