Title: Analysis of interactions among the barriers to effective hospital waste management

Authors: Mohd. Nishat Faisal, Sheeba Khan, I.H. Farooqi

Addresses: Department of Management and Marketing, College of Business and Economics, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha, Qatar. ' Department of Civil Engineering, Z.H.C.E.T. Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, UP, 202002, India. ' Department of Civil Engineering, Z.H.C.E.T. Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, UP, 202002, India

Abstract: Today, the healthcare facilities are under severe stress due to the huge population they are required to support. This has led to an exponential increase in the amount of waste generated in hospitals. Improper disposal of wastes in hospitals places direct and indirect health impacts on those working in hospitals and the surrounding communities and on the environment. Thus, collection, transportation and disposal of hospital waste have turned into a complicated and critical problem. Since there are several barriers to the implementation of an effective hospital waste management program, an effort has been made in this paper to understand the mutual relationship among these barriers, using interpretive structural modelling. The outcome of the research is a hierarchy based model and a classification based on their relative importance. The results of this research provide insight to waste management professionals to focus on key variables that are most important for effective waste management in hospitals.

Keywords: hospital waste management; HWM; interpretive structural modelling; ISM; barriers; classification; healthcare facilities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBHR.2010.037636

International Journal of Behavioural and Healthcare Research, 2010 Vol.2 No.2, pp.154 - 171

Published online: 20 Dec 2010 *

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