Future Horizons in Sustainable and Adaptive Health Enterprises

The research problem is the capacity of health enterprises – public or private organizations that deliver or finance health services to populations – to combine sustainability and adaptation, two dimensions of performance implicated in their long-term success. The analysis maps conceptual foundations, examines emerging drivers, surveys models of sustainability, and identifies the innovative approaches that advance adaptation. The capacity of health enterprises to pursue sustainability and adaptation is particularly salient today, as the global demographic transition creates unprecedented pressure on health systems, compounded by the impact of climate change, the digital transformation of health, and the emergence of new actors delivering care. The capacity of health enterprises to pursue sustainable development and realize smart growth relies simultaneously on the institutionally defined trade-offs between sustainability, external efficiency, and financial viability, and on their ability to innovate, thereby changing the definition of the business model and address the underlying development challenge in a new way.