Selection of infectious medical waste disposal firms by using the analytic hierarchy process and sensitivity analysis
- Department of Communications Management, Shih Hsin University, No.1, Lane 17, Mu-Cha Road, Sec.1, Taipei 11604, Taiwan (China), E-mail: celina9@ms26.hinet.net
- Graduate Institute of Business and Management, Yuanpei University, 306 Yuanpei Street, Hsin Chu 300, Taiwan (China), E-mail: alexru00@ms41.hinet.net
- Graduate Institute of Business and Management, Yuanpei University, 306 Yuanpei Street, Hsin Chu 300, Taiwan (China), E-mail: ting.ding@msa.hinet.net
While Taiwanese hospitals dispose of large amounts of medical waste to ensure sanitation and personal hygiene, doing so inefficiently creates potential environmental hazards and increases operational expenses. However, hospitals lack objective criteria to select the most appropriate waste disposal firm and evaluate its performance, instead relying on their own subjective judgment and previous experiences. Therefore, this work presents an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method to objectively select medical waste disposal firms based on the results of interviews with experts in the field, thus reducing overhead costs and enhancing medical waste management. An appropriate weight criterion based on AHP is derived to assess the effectiveness of medical waste disposal firms. The proposed AHP-based method offers a more efficient and precise means of selecting medical waste firms than subjective assessment methods do, thus reducing the potential risks for hospitals. Analysis results indicate that the medical sector selects the most appropriate infectious medical waste disposal firm based on the following rank: matching degree, contractor's qualifications, contractor's service capability, contractor's equipment and economic factors. By providing hospitals with an effective means of evaluating medical waste disposal firms, the proposed AHP method can reduce overhead costs and enable medical waste management to understand the market demand in the health sector. Moreover, performed through use of Expert Choice software, sensitivity analysis can survey the criterion weight of the degree of influence with an alternative hierarchy.
- OSTI ID:
- 21153974
- Journal Information:
- Waste Management, Vol. 28, Issue 8; Other Information: DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2007.05.016; PII: S0956-053X(07)00181-X; Copyright (c) 2007 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, All rights reserved; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0956-053X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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