Recent Trends in Medical Waste Management in Hospitals: A Thematic Review Integrating Operations Research, Sustainability, and Digitalization

Medical waste management has become a strategic priority for healthcare institutions due to volumetric increases experienced during crises, such as infectious diseases, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic, and has undergone significant transformations in recent years, focusing on sustainability, circular economy, and digitalization. This thematic review addresses the existing academic literature on medical waste management in hospitals, focusing on operational and managerial challenges. Findings indicate that a significant portion of the literature focuses on operational research approaches; multi-criteria decision-making methods are used for technology and location selection, while mathematical modeling and heuristic algorithms are used for cost and risk minimization in logistics network design and vehicle routing. The sustainability paradigm requires the integration of Environmental, Social, and Governance and Sustainable Development Goals frameworks into medical waste management processes. Circular economy, resource segregation, and waste-to-energy conversion technologies are emphasized. Digitalization enables optimization, whereas stakeholder engagement and training form the basis of success. The literature review was conducted using keywords identified in the Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar databases, and relevant studies were analyzed using a thematic synthesis approach by reviewing their titles, abstracts, and full texts. The review revealed that subjectivity in multi-criteria decision-making models, the lack of real-world validation in optimization studies, and the limited treatment of ethical and data governance dimensions of digital technologies are key research gaps. It is considered important for future studies to incorporate data-driven decision support systems, hybrid decision models, advanced optimization approaches, and validation studies with real hospital applications.