Integrated Sustainable Supply Chain Management for Healthcare: A Theory-Driven Framework Linking Digital Transformation, Social Responsibility, and Resilience
Keywords:
sustainable supply chains, healthcare logistics, digital transformation, social sustainabilityAbstract
This article develops a comprehensive, theory-driven, and publication-ready examination of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) applied to healthcare systems. Grounded in an interdisciplinary synthesis of extant scholarship on sustainability, logistics, digital transformation, and healthcare operations, the study constructs an integrative conceptual framework that links environmental footprint reduction, social sustainability, stakeholder engagement, and resilience to technological enablers such as machine intelligence, blockchain, and platform economies. The work responds to persistent gaps in the literature concerning how healthcare-specific supply chains—characterized by regulated products, critical-time constraints, and complex internal logistics—can be systematically transformed to deliver improved patient care while minimizing environmental harms and strengthening social value chains. Drawing on empirical insights and theoretical constructs from sustainable supply chain management, institutional quality, corporate social responsibility, and health services research, this article explicates methodological approaches suitable for evaluative and implementation research and reports synthesized results from cross-domain evidence: environmental footprint assessments, digital capability evaluations, social sustainability metrics, and resilience indicators. The discussion unpacks the trade-offs and co-benefits of green logistics, digitalization, and stakeholder governance, highlighting limitations, contextual contingencies (especially for low- and middle-income settings), and a research agenda to test and operationalize the framework. The conclusion offers a set of practice-oriented recommendations for hospital managers, policy-makers, and supply chain designers aimed at aligning clinical excellence with planetary and social stewardship. This article contributes to theory by proposing a multi-level integrative model and to practice by mapping actionable pathways for sustainable, resilient, and socially responsible healthcare supply chains.
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