Leadership and Efficiency: A Management Approach to Enhancing Medical Laboratory’s impact on Sustainable Development Goal 3 in a low-middle setting in the Global South

Abstract

The study attempts to explore the leadership and efficiency of the impact of medical laboratories on Sustainable Development Goal 3 in a low- to middle setting in the Global South. The objective of the study was to examine the impact of leadership and operational efficiency as a combined management approach within medical laboratories, specifically focusing on how these factors enhance the laboratories' contribution to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3) by optimizing healthcare delivery and promoting global health equity. The study used the quantitative method, where data was collected from specialists such as scientists and State Certified Medical Laboratory technicians. Data was collected using Qualtrics software, transferred into Microsoft Excel and eventually into SPSS for analysis after cleaning. On demographics, only role and experience were taken, and then the researcher ran the correlations matrix analysis on various variables as hypothesized in the paper to see the influence of the laboratory services on sustainable development goal 3 in Zimbabwe. The results show that of the 51 participants, 33 of the respondents were scientists and 18 were the State Certified Medical Laboratory Technicians (SCMLT). Furthermore, the results show differing experiences from 1 year to 23 years. Additionally, staff training and development and laboratory practice are correlated, while workflow processes and laboratory operations were found not to be related. Additionally, the results further showed that standardised procedures and leadership and operational efficiency are not related, and the relationship between managing a laboratory portfolio and a culture of innovation was found to be negative. I can conclude that the Ministry of Health have a long way to go in meeting the SDG 3 and policies must be put in place that ensures that the laboratory services is given priority in support of the SDG 3. The study recommends that the laboratory work on the negatives to improve the support for SDG 3. The study suggested that future studies can be done focusing on the clinics and the Ministry of Health’s leadership style.