Evaluating and selecting sustainable logistics service providers for medical waste disposal treatment in the healthcare industry

Abstract

Health institutes are structurally growing depending on the population increase and escalating demands for health services. As a negative result, the health industry produces more healthcare waste daily. Its efforts and resources cannot be sufficient to dispose of such medical wastes as the quantity and variety continue to increase. Therefore, developing solution partnership relations with logistics service providers specialized in collecting, storing, and disposing healthcare waste may be a beneficial and fruitful step for solving this problem. However, the evaluation and selection of service suppliers for healthcare waste disposal may not always result in success. Hence, the present work develops a robust integrated methodology on the basis of Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) and COmplex PRoportional ASsessment (COPRAS) techniques based on Interval-Valued Fermatean Fuzzy Sets (IVFFSs) for healthcare decision-makers to make more rational and optimal decisions concerning service supplier selection. The proposed model based on the IVFFSs can also overcome incredibly complicated uncertainties in the assessment processes. A large-scale international hospital chain in Turkey is investigated using the developed methodology to find reasonable and logical solutions to assess and select the best Medical Waste Disposal and Logistics (MWDL) firm. It is revealed that the most important criterion is Storage Conditions where Republic Services, Inc is the most successful supplier of MWDL. Finally, theoretical and practical implications are discussed in detail in order to provide useful managerial insights and decision aids to assist in improving the sustainability of healthcare industry.