From Resilience to Anti-Fragility: A Contingency-Based Supply-Chain Framework for Medical Waste Management in Resource-Constrained Healthcare Systems
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70670/sra.v4i2.2316Keywords:
Medical Waste Management; Anti-fragile Supply Chain; Supply-Chain Risk Management; Contingency Theory; Healthcare Sustainability; Digital Technologies; Resource-Constrained Healthcare Systems.Abstract
Medical-waste value chains in resource-poor healthcare systems are often strained due to poor segregation practices, centralized treatment facilities, poor transport controls, undefined roles of various stakeholders, lower infrastructure capabilities, non-compliance to regulations, and lack of operational data. There is a focus on building up resistance, recovery and restoration following disturbance in conventional supply-chain resilience but may not be sufficient for systems that face shocks and have a certain chronic institutional fragility. Contingency-based antifragile supply chain framework for medical-waste management by integrating Supply Chain Risk Mitigation, Resilience theory, Antifragility, Contingency theory, Dynamic capabilities, Decentralization, Real-time monitoring and Post shock learning. The aim of framework is to be further qualitatively validated of selected public and private hospitals in metro and sub-urban Punjab, Pakistan. It suggests that the systems of healthcare waste can be antifragile through being able to leverage information induced by disruption to increase their level of segregation, coordination, traceability, continuity of treatment, regulatory performance, etc. AI, IoT, RFID, blockchain and decentralized processing units aren't considered one size fits all. AI, IoT, RFID, blockchain and decentralized processing units are regarded as contingent enablers instead of universally applicable solutions. Effectiveness is a function of hospital size, geography, quantity of waste, readiness to digitalize, infrastructure, capacity of stakeholders, and regulatory enforcement. This article makes a further application in the field of supply chain theory that can be used to transcend recovery and push towards improvement in the face of volatility and provide a contextually grounded framework for designing medical-waste systems that are environmentally sustainable, technologically capable, and socially inclusive.
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