Developing a sustainability index for public health supply chains

Researchers and practitioners alike have become increasingly aware and interested in the sustainability of supply chains. The majority of the research in this area includes the triple-bottom approach of sustainability understanding the economic, social, and environmental outcomes of supply chain functions. Several sustainability measures have been presented in the literature to recognize the sustainability of supply chains helping stakeholders in making strategic decisions. However, most of these studies analyze supply chains in developed nations and the research on sustainable supply chains in developing countries is scarce. The existing studies cover only the triple-bottom approach of sustainability in supply chains and there is a need to delve deeper into research to identify and quantify additional aspects of supply chain sustainability. Moreover, there is very little evidence of research on the sustainability of public health supply chains. Greater attempts in doing so will gain more comprehension of the emerging scope of sustainability practices in healthcare and help the various stakeholders improve their actions. Under this background, the main contribution of the paper is to devise a sustainability measure applicable to supply chains in public health. To this end, we develop a Supply Chain Sustainability Index which in addition to measuring the economic, social, and environmental footprints, also measures the stakeholder collaboration, health outcomes, and product/service and process quality initiatives. The index is comprised of a set of quantitative sub-indicators assessing multiple dimensions of sustainability across the supply chain participants concerning their role, location, capacity, etc. The sustainability index is modelled as a multi-dimensional vector and follows a hierarchal structure breaking down the different dimensions of sustainability to sets of sub-indicators and metrics. Although the current conceptual study does not provide any empirical evidence, it aims to propose this index to improve the evaluation and health coverage of public health supply chains. It will act as a foundation for further research and enable practical testing of the index in public health supply chains.