Assessing the impact of artificial intelligence and circular economy on the healthcare sector: An empirical evidence from the Indian context

Abstract

The Indian healthcare system is dealing with several challenges, including biological waste, transportation as well as logistics of life-saving medications, and inadequate infrastructure. Stakeholders must properly address these challenges to enhance the performance of the healthcare sector. Literature seeks stakeholder commitment, willingness to embrace artificial intelligence and the principles of the circular economy as possible solutions to the challenges. So this study considers four parameters, i.e., stakeholder commitment, circular economy, artificial intelligence, and healthcare performance. It ascertains each parameter’s (stakeholder commitment, circular economy, and artificial intelligence) contribution to healthcare performance. In addition, it determines whether a relationship exists between the four parameters. Artificial intelligence supports the healthcare sector by providing better inventory management, customer–supplier relationships, and efficient logistics service. This improves the quality of services. A circular economy ensures the reuse of leftover healthcare products, and recycling and ensures sustainability. This lowers the cost for the firms. This study was conducted empirically. Initially, we prepare a questionnaire and collect responses from healthcare firm stakeholders. A total of 261 responses are recorded, and these datasets are analyzed by R. A psych package is used for the data analysis. SEMinR package is used for the development of measurement and structural models. The research finding represents that all three parameters contribute to improving healthcare performance. Stakeholder commitment ($\beta$ = 0.323) is the major driving force. Stakeholders prioritize implementing circular economy principles ($\beta$ = 0.247) above artificial intelligence ($\beta$ = 0.122). However, the potential capacity of artificial intelligence ($\beta$ = 0.207) prevails over that of the circular economy ($\beta$ = 0.167) when these two are compared. The comparison shows that Indian healthcare firms lack the necessary infrastructure to implement artificial intelligence, while they implement circular economy practices on a much wider scale.