INTEGRATING LEAN HEALTHCARE AND PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS FOR SUSTAINABLE HOSPITAL WASTE MANAGEMENT: A NARRATIVE REVIEW FROM A BLUE-GREEN ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35631/JTHEM.1145010Keywords:
Blue-Green Economic Synergy, Circular Economy, Hospital Waste Management, Lean Healthcare, Narrative Review, Predictive Analytics, Sustainable HealthcareAbstract
Operational efficiency, clinical quality and environmental sustainability are increasingly difficult to balance in the modern healthcare system. Lean Healthcare has proven to be a methodology for waste elimination in processes, but its static nature often limits its responsiveness to dynamic healthcare environments. However, predictive analytics offers advanced forecasting capabilities but often fails to integrate with operational workflows. This narrative review aims to fill this conceptual and practical gap by exploring how the combination of Lean Healthcare and predictive analytics generates a Blue-Green Economic Synergy to transform hospital waste management. Synthesizing literature published between 2015 and 2026 retrieved from Scopus, this review explores four core themes: operational waste reduction via Lean deployment, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence applications in waste forecasting, circular economy integration within blue-green frameworks, and organizational, technical, and policy implementation dynamics. The synthesis shows that combining Lean process discipline with algorithmic foresight may enable proactive resource optimisation, may reduce the gradual accumulation of energy inefficiency, and has the potential to reduce Scope 1–3 emissions. Furthermore, this review extends the Natural Resource-Based View and Dynamic Capabilities Theory by showing how process-based pollution prevention capabilities complement algorithmic sensing mechanisms in digital healthcare operations. In practical terms, this paper may offer health system managers and policymakers a conceptual framework for transitioning hospital operations toward circular waste ecosystems.
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