Driving sustainable healthcare service management in the hospital sector

Sustainability in service management is a crucial issue in today's competitive business environment. Previous researchers have conducted studies on healthcare sustainability from various areas, but none has been conducted on the assessment of driving factors to sustainable service management in the hospital sector. This study fills this research gap by identifying and assessing the driving factors behind sustainable service management in the hospital sector from an emerging economy context. The study does so by utilizing integrated qualitative and quantitative research methods. Primarily, the study performed a Delphi study to identify the most relevant driving factors and then utilized the integrated grey-based decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) model to aid the evaluation within the Bangladesh hospital sector. The study identified eleven factors as the causal and nine factors as effect group factors. Furthermore, the factor “Engaging experienced doctors in top management (D20)” was identified as the most prominent driving factor for sustainable hospital service management. The driving factor “Implementation of public health policies (D18)” was identified as the topmost causal factor, and “Proper maintenance and monitoring of hospital support services (D9)” identified as the most influenced/impacted effect group driving factor. The study's findings have significant policy implications for service operations and managers in the hospital sectors. The service managers should give special attention to the causal group driving factors and invest heavily in them as that will help to improve the effect group factors within the system.