Strategies during digital transformation to make progress in achievement of sustainable development by 2030

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore strategies during transformation to obtain sustainable development and to identify the human-based factors contributing to the transformation. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative study explored the strategies that health-care leaders need to adopt during transformation to achieve the Sustainable Development of the United Nations' agenda by 2030. The study was conducted in early 2020 among ten health-care leaders in the USA. The research design was an exploratory qualitative approach that used a semi-structured, open-ended questionnaire asked of ten US health-care leaders who had experience in leading health-care transformation in their organizations. The study findings identified that health-care leaders can facilitate the achievement of Sustainable Development by establishing strategies in knowledge improvement, innovation development, motivation increment, global strategy and local strategy alignment, leadership support and partnership development. Findings Six major themes emerged from the data linked to the central research question: “What are the strategies during digital transformation to make progress in the achievement of Sustainable Development by 2030?” The compressed collection of themes for the study included the following six major themes: knowledge development; innovation development; motivation; global strategy establishment; leadership; collaboration enhancement; and two minor themes, namely, mindset change and vision creation. Research limitations/implications Due to the few numbers of participants selected for this study (N = 10) may not be generalizable to other settings. The implication of this study is to identify the significant factors contributing to making progress in sustainable development in health-care organizations. The health-care leaders can learn what significant strategies can be helpful to establish future-based organizations toward achieving sustainability. Practical implications The results of this study provided actionable strategies to empower the employees and increase managerial innovation in health-care organizations. Social implications Promoting partnership of health-care organizations with social and global activities such as sustainable development goals that are contributing in 5Ps: People, Prosperity, Peace, Partnership and Planet. Originality/value The main reason for the study was that health-care leaders worldwide could have a novel study that deline