Selection of medical waste logistic firms by using AHP TOPSIS methodology
Hospitals create large amount of medical waste that endangers human health and sanitation if handled improperly. Hence, medical waste is to be handled by appropriate logistics firms that transport it to special disposal facilities to minimize the potential environmental hazards and decrease operational expenses. The selection of the most appropriate logistic service provider for medical waste management is an essential procedure to ensure hygiene. However, hospitals select their medical waste management firm inefficiently, where the service performance is often clouded by subjective judgment and past experience. This work presents a systematic and logical approach to evaluate hazardous medical waste management (HMWM) logistic firm selection process through AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) based TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) methodology. AHP process is used to obtain the criteria weights and then based on interviews with experts, TOPSIS method is used to objectively select the most suitable hazardous medical waste logistic firm to at the same time reduce overhead costs and enhance hazardous waste management in a hospital environment. The proposed method offers very efficient and precise means to select HMWM logistic firms than other subjective assessment methods do and so reduces the potential health and environmental risk for hospitals environment. Key Words: Medical waste, hazardous medical waste management, logistic firm selection, AHP, TOPSIS