Effective Medical Waste Management for Sustainable Green Healthcare

Sang M. Lee and DonHee Lee ()
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Sang M. Lee: College of Business, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA
DonHee Lee: College of Business Administration, Inha University, Incheon 22212, Korea

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 22, 1-17

Abstract: This study examines the importance of medical waste management activities for developing a sustainable green healthcare environment. This study applied a multiple methodological approach as follows. A thorough review of the literature was performed to delineate the factors that have been explored for reducing medical waste; hospital staff who handle medical waste were surveyed to obtain their opinions on these factors; the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was applied to determine the priorities among the identified key factors; and experts’ opinions were consulted to assess the actual applicability of the results derived by the AHP. The study identified the following factors as the most important: medical waste management (26.6%), operational management issues (21.7%), training for medical waste management procedures (17.8%), raising awareness (17.5%), and environmental assessment (16.4%). This study analyzed the contributing factors to the generation of medical waste based on the data collected from medical staff and the AHP for developing a sustainable green healthcare environment. The study results provide theoretical and practical implications for implementing effective medical waste management toward a sustainable green healthcare environment.

Keywords: medical waste management; priorities of medical waste management activities; hospitals; sustainable healthcare service; analytic hierarchy process (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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