Emergence Of Sustainability Based Approaches In Healthcare: Expanding Research And Practice
Authors: Malliga Marimuthu, Hanna Paulose
Abstract:
The study explores the scope of sustainability practices in healthcare by systematically examining studies conducted on healthcare related issues within the context of sustainability. The review is focused on three main conceptual aspects – dimensions of sustainability practices in healthcare, drivers of sustainable practices within the industry and strategies to implement sustainability effectively in healthcare. Relevant literature on sustainability in healthcare is referred to address the developed research question. Based on the identified expanding dimensions of sustainability research and practices, future research insights are proposed as conceptual models that reflect the scope of sustainability practices in healthcare. This could enhance understanding of the literature and stimulate researchers to expand the research of sustainability in healthcare in a more widespread and holistic perspective as to ensure service excellence formation for business sustainability. The implications of the study are threefold. Firstly it provides researchers and practitioners interested in healthcare literature an overview of how the concept of sustainability has evolved over time in the healthcare sector. Secondly, the paper highlights the driving forces for sustainability implementation in healthcare and strategies to continuously enhancement the sustainability implementation in healthcare.
Keywords
Healthcare; sustainability; environment; customer; employee; community
Citation: Malliga Marimuthu, Hanna Paulose Emergence Of Sustainability Based Approaches In Healthcare: Expanding Research And Practice http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.05.437
Available online: 17 July 2016
Copyright: © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Conclusion
As service excellence in healthcare context is the ability of the provider to consistently meet and manage patient expectations, this paper presents the preliminary findings from a systematic review of literature on the sustainability of the healthcare sector for service excellence formation that centered on enhancing the life quality of human. The study identifies a gap in integrating the sustainability practices into healthcare management. This study described that the emergence of sustainability in healthcare involves balancing of four key factors in its operating process: environment concerns, the needs of patients, the needs of employees and community concern as to continuously improve the quality and reduce cost. The drivers for the emerging sustainability practices and strategies to sustain the sustainability practices are discussed. This study extends the statement made by the researcher that sustainable healthcare combines quality patient care and minimizing environmental impact (Jameton & McGuire, 2002). Two other processes found from the literature and added into this study are quality working environment and preserving environment for community which centered on the benefits for employees and communities respectively. One of the future suggestions, which we could immediately identify, is about expanding the scope of sustainability in healthcare beyond environmental sustainability into human based sustainability (e.g. patient, employee and community) for enhancing organizational excellence and high quality of service. Research in future should expand and compare other issues related to sustainability formation in healthcare in a more integrative and holistic perspective.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Universiti Sains Malaysia for providing funding for this study under grant no: 1001/PMGT/816261.
