AccScience Publishing / AJWEP / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/AJWEP025460352
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Integrating blockchain in the healthcare sector: Adoption and challenges for sustainable waste management

Majdi Anwar Quttainah*
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1 Department of Management and Marketing, College of Business Administration, Kuwait University, Safat, Kuwait
AJWEP, 025460352 https://doi.org/10.36922/AJWEP025460352
Received: 14 November 2025 | Revised: 16 December 2025 | Accepted: 23 December 2025 | Published online: 28 January 2026
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Sustainable Development of Ecology and Environment)
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Healthcare waste management suffers from limited transparency, weak traceability, and compliance challenges, leading to significant environmental and public health risks. Blockchain technology offers a potential solution by enabling secure, immutable, and auditable waste-tracking systems. This study examines the key factors influencing the adoption of blockchain in sustainable healthcare waste management and assesses suitable blockchain platforms for implementation. An integrated multi-method framework—fuzzy best–worst method, interpretive structural modeling, decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) was applied to analyze expert judgments from healthcare, industry, academia, and blockchain specialists. The findings indicate that data privacy concerns, scalability limitations, a lack of organizational support, and regulatory ambiguity are the most significant barriers. DEMATEL identifies organizational support and regulatory clarity as major causal drivers. The study offers actionable insights for policymakers and healthcare organizations to prioritize regulatory reforms, capacity-building, and infrastructure investment to enable blockchain-driven waste management systems.

Keywords
Blockchain technology
Healthcare waste management
Sustainability
Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method
Analytic network process
Regulatory compliance
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The author declares has no competing interests.
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Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, Electronic ISSN: 1875-8568 Print ISSN: 0972-9860, Published by AccScience Publishing
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