A Systems Thinking Approach To Apply Water Sustainability In Hospitals

Abstract

One of the most critical challenges the world is facing is to ensure everyone has access to an adequate and quality supply of water. As the population increases, the demand for water rises. Water needs to be sustained for current and future generations. Sustainability acts to balance the resource supply and demand. Hospitals are a major consumer of water. Unfortunately water is facing the challenges of diminishing resources and increasing demands. Therefore, considering water sustainability in hospitals is of significant importance. Water sustainability in hospitals is also important since hospitals offer services to help people improve the quality and health of their daily lives. Hospitals are large complex systems that consist of various elements and relationships. Systems engineering guides the engineering of complex systems and can be used to help address the multi-faceted and complex sustainability challenges. A systems thinking approach is applied to comprehend how various factors related to hospitals and water sustainability interact.System dynamics is a systems thinking approach in systems engineering. This approach provides a better understanding of water sustainability considerations in hospitals and visualizes and explores the structure and behavior of factors and factor relationships related to water sustainability in hospitals. Healthcare sustainability causal models are developed and represent the factors and relationships that contribute to sustainability in healthcare. A causal model related to water sustainability in hospitals is also developed that represents key factors and factor relationships related to water sustainability in hospitals. A simulator is developed that models the behavior of different factors related to hospitals and water sustainability and helps decision makers with their decision making process and understand the impacts of their decisions.