Managing healthcare waste for sustainable environmental development: A hybrid decision approach

Healthcare waste management (HCWM) has become the most concerned issue for hospitals to enhance their environmental performance while reducing the waste disposal costs. The present study aims to standardize the evaluation criteria for the stakeholders to ensure sustainable environmental development by safe disposal of infectious healthcare waste (HCW). The present study applied the fuzzy-Delphi method to scrutinize the criteria identified from the literature and experts' opinions and resulted in 20 subcriteria under the following six main dimensions: experience, relationship, environmental factors, technology and qualification, economic factors, and firm's capabilities. Further, this study proposed a hybrid approach based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) under fuzzy environment to analyze the importance and interrelationships of these listed criteria. The study also showed that the experts have given approximately 70% weightage to three main criteria: firms' capabilities, economic factors, and technology and qualification. The implications of the study would help the healthcare administration and Pollution Control Boards to prepare check sheets for recording HCWM practices and, hence, contribute to sustainable environmental development in an efficient way. Understanding the prioritized cause-group criteria would further protect hospitals' environment from the spread of infection caused by the HCW in the long run.

Automated summary

This study aims to standardize evaluation criteria for stakeholders to ensure sustainable environmental development through safe disposal of healthcare waste. With 20 subcriteria under six main dimensions identified, experts gave approximately 70% weight to firms' capabilities, economic factors, and technology and qualification as main criteria. The implications of this study would help healthcare administration and Pollution Control Boards improve HCWM practices and contribute to sustainable environmental development.