Project FORESIGHT and Return on Investment: Forensic Science Laboratories and Public Health Laboratories

ABSTRACT

Forensic laboratories have experienced a growing demand for services that has far outpaced the resources allocated for the investigation of forensic evidence. European and North American projects have led to the development of managerial tools for optimizing efficiency and the cost effective delivery of forensic science services. These developments have attracted the attention of other public sector operations, including public health laboratories. The public health laboratories share many of the characteristics of the forensic science laboratory. Both sectors are dominated by the work of scientists with many of the laboratory applications using similar techniques. Observing the Project FORESIGHT developments with forensic science laboratories, the Association of Public Health Laboratories introduced a project to create data collection tools for their membership, and to offer a foundation for research into the issues and challenges facing these laboratories. We outline the progression of events where the forensic science laboratory experience has been extended to the public health laboratories. The public health laboratory project has, in turn, developed some metrics that may prove valuable to the future research of forensic science laboratories. The public health laboratory project went beyond the internal inspection of the business experience and connected the internal efficiencies to the public outcomes via the development of return on investment metrics. Careful observation of the public health laboratory project provides some future direction for extension of the use of business metrics for forensic science laboratories.

KEYWORDS:

• Management
• return on investment
• finance

Funding

This publication was supported by the Cooperative Agreement Number U60OE000103, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the Association of Public Health Laboratories. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

Notes

1. The CFL declined participation in Project FORESIGHT after the 2015 fiscal year.