Sustainability trends in public hospitals: Efforts and priorities

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the previous and the current efforts and the priorities of sustainability initiatives in the public sector.

Design/methodology/approach: This study has been conducted in one industry, overcoming contextual bias as a judgmental sampling was used to select the public hospitals that were studied. Only knowledgeable key informants were approached and used.

Findings: The examination of the previous and the current efforts and the priorities of the sustainability initiatives revealed in this study indicate the existence of different trends in the public hospitals studied.

Research limitations/implications: The results report the key trends that were disclosed in the public hospitals studied in their efforts towards sustainability. In particular, the results show that there appears to be a lack of guidelines and homogeneity in sustainability planning in public hospitals in Spain, accompanied by the near universal absence of the evaluation phase in respect to the outcomes of the sustainability initiatives that have been put in place in these organizations.

Managerial implications: The multi-dimensional factors of sustainability initiatives provide managerial guidance to assess the previous and the current efforts and priorities. These factors also provide organizational guidance to assess the trends of an organization through time.

Originality/value: This study contributes to a selection of factors regarding the previous and the current efforts and the priorities of sustainability initiatives applicable in public hospitals. It provides a multi-dimensional framework of factors that can be used in order to describe sustainability trends.

Keywords: Healthcare; Sustainable development; Trends.