Healthcare without harm: A benchmark tool towards a greener footprint of the Operation Rooms
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2020-07-08
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en
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Abstract
Sustainable development has been one of the most urgent challenges for the healthcare sector.
Such an important development asks for a great movement initiated by a group of internal actors
that together deliberately formed a national platform for the Green OR that aims for sustainable
development for the operating rooms. They find it very important to have the ability to measure
that sustainable development in a benchmark tool for the operating rooms. Therefore, the Green
Barometer for the OR is invented.
This study was conducted within an academic hospital in the Netherlands and examined the
process of environmental issue selling aiming at designing a benchmark tool to monitor the
sustainable development of the OR, and also contributes to the actual development of that
benchmark tool called the Green Barometer for the OR on the subject of waste distribution in
the OR. Therefore, the following two research questions have been derived: “How can the
acceptance of a benchmark tool for the Green OR be created through a process of
environmental issue selling?” and “How can the degree of sustainable waste flows in the
operating room be measured in a benchmark tool?”. In order to answer those two research
questions a qualitative, inductive approach with a, social constructivist perspective was used to
gain insight about this process of environmental issue selling and about how a design for the
Green Barometer for the OR should look like. The data was gathered through semi-structured
in-depth interviews.
The results showed that the internal activists deliberately approached possible allies that were
already interested in sustainable development for the OR. Together they formed a coalition of
the willing and started the national platform for the Green OR. During that process, members
of that platform wanted to create two types of pressure for commitment, namely internal and
external pressure. The results about the desired barometer showed that the Green Barometer for
the OR should be transparent, clear, unambiguous, and approachable. The specific indicators
for measuring the status quo with respect to waste can be found in appendix 2.
This research contributes to current literature on environmental issue selling as it examines the
development of an interorganizational collaboration from the perspective of an insider activist.
On top of that, a prototype for the Green Barometer for the OR is developed and provides a fist
glance of what the eventual benchmark may look like.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen