Ranking the hospitals in terms of hospital waste reduction criteria case study: educational hospitals of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (SBUMS)

Background and Objective: Medical waste is among the environmental problems. Failure to manage these wastes leads to the prevalence of various diseases. This study aimed to rank the educational hospitals of SBUMS by assessing medical waste reduction. Materials and Methods: First, a review of past national and international studies was performed and accordingly, 12 criteria and 30 sub-criteria for reduction of medical waste production were selected. After developing a questionnaire based on such criteria, data was collected from six SBUMS hospitals. Then, TOPSIS and VIKOR techniques in MATLAB were used as ranking methods of hospitals. Results: The combined results of TOPSIS and VIKOR methods using weighted average indicated that Hospital (C), Hospitals (B) and (A) were respectively ranked first, second and third in terms of waste management. Moreover, the effective measures to reduce the amount of waste production and to improve the waste management system include human resource, management support, proper management of supplies, proper model of service delivery, quality of supplies and equipment, and waste sorting at source. Conclusion: A combined method consisting of TOPSIS and VIKOR for evaluation of ranking of hospitals in terms of waste management can be a helpful tool in planning waste management, and can provide a basis for improving measures and promoting programs and activities.