Sri Lanka is well known for having achieved very good health outcomes at low cost. In 1991 the Ministry of Health and Women’s Affairs (MOHWA) undertook a Health Facility Survey with support from the World Bank. The study covered all public health facilities and a sample of private facilities in four Districts. The primary goal of the study was to provide information about the cost of providing health services in public and private health facilities. The data from this survey was re-analyzed by the IPS during 1994/95. The objective of the study was to explore different methods for quantifying the magnitude of technical and economic inefficiency in service provision by public sector providers; identify institutional and behavioural factors which explain difference in efficiency; develop and evaluate policy options at different levels of the health care system to improve the performance of public sector providers and to identify factors that explain why unit costs in Sri Lanka’s public health facilities are lower than in other countries.
