A framework for measuring sustainability in healthcare systems

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to identify sustainability factors in the healthcare sector, introduce a hierarchical framework for the sustainability factors, and prioritize the importance of the sustainability factors and sub-factors. Measuring sustainability in healthcare systems is a complex and unstructured issue that involves many criteria and sub-criteria, requiring the issue to be deconstructed into a set of components organized into a multi-level hierarchical form. Analytical hierarchical process (AHP) methodology is used to manage the complexity of multi-criteria decision-making processes. Data were collected from five large hospitals in Abu Dhabi, which is the largest Emirate of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The AHP framework used in this study resulted in a ranking of 31 sustainability sub-factors based on evaluations by experienced healthcare professionals. This work contributes to continuing research on sustainability, giving practitioners and designers a practical means to measure and implement sustainability factors in health organizations. Through successive stages of data collection, measurement analysis, and refinement, the contribution of this research is a reliable and valid framework that can be used to conceptualize and prioritize sustainability strategies in healthcare management.

KEYWORDS:

• Healthcare
• sustainability
• analytical hierarchy process
• Abu Dhabi

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Omar Awad AlJaberi is a DBA candidate at College of Business Administration, Abu Dhabi University, United Arab Emirates. He holds an MBA from the same university. In addition, he has held a Project Management Professional (PMP) certificate since 2013. His research interests are in the areas of Project Management, Strategy, and Sustainability. He is currently working in Al Ain Hospital as an IT Project Manager. E-mail address: [email protected].

Dr. Matloub Hussain is an Associate Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management in College of Business Administration (COBA) of Abu Dhabi University, UAE. Dr. Hussain has a PhD from Management school of University of Liverpool, UK. During his PhD, he worked on a research project on inventory modelling and optimization of Lear Halewood, first tier supplier of Jaguar. Also, he has taught at management school of university of Liverpool, SZABIST, Pakistan and currently teaching at Abu Dhabi University at graduate and post graduate level. His research interests include but not limited to: supply chains, logistics management, Quality Management and sustainability. Hussain have over thirty international refereed papers, three books, conference papers and many other academic contributions.

Paul Drake has a BSc in Statistics and an MSc and a PhD in Systems Engineering. He is a Chartered Engineer through the Institution of Engineering Technology and Chartered Member of the Institute of Logistics and Transport. Prior to embarking on an academic career, he gained several years' experience in industry developing information systems. He has conducted wide-ranging research in manufacturing and operations management in collaboration with businesses and the public sector. His early research was into machine and process monitoring. He then supervised several Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) with manufacturing enterprises and developed a thread of research into decision support systems. His current research has expanded into transport logistics, purchasing strategy and the novel application of supply chain management thinking to social care.