Implementation of Halal Assurance Systems in Hospital Kitchens

A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

The halal assurance of food provided to hospitalized patients is an increasingly important dimension of healthcare quality in Muslim majority countries such as Indonesia, and hospital kitchens are a critical control point for halal compliance because they manage the entire food-service chain from procurement to patient distribution. This study aimed to synthesize the regulatory basis, benefits, hospital-level implementation, and market response associated with the Halal Assurance System (HAS) in hospital kitchens. A systematic literature review was conducted following PRISMA reporting principles, searching Scopus, Emerald Insight, MDPI, DOAJ, PubMed/PMC, Google Scholar, and Garuda/Sinta for publications from 2013-2025, supplemented by a hand search of Indonesian statutory and institutional documents. After screening and eligibility assessment, the qualitative synthesis included ten peer-reviewed empirical studies and one scholarly book, along with five statutory/regulatory documents and four institutional publications. The results show that Indonesia's halal assurance framework is layered across a national law, implementing government regulations, a sharia fatwa, and a ministerial technical guideline, culminating in mandatory halal certification for medium and large food business actors, including hospital kitchens, since 18 October 2024. Across the included studies, halal/sharia-based service attributes were consistently associated with patient satisfaction and word-of-mouth recommendation in cross-sectional surveys from Indonesia and Malaysia. However, evidence on food-safety outcomes and hospital competitiveness remains limited, indirect, and largely correlational. Several Indonesian hospitals, both faith-based and public, have obtained halal kitchen certification, although verifiable evidence varies by hospital. These findings suggest that HAS implementation is best understood as a regulatory-driven, market-relevant practice whose clinical and economic effects still require more rigorous, prospective research.