IRB Advisor – April 1, 2013
April 1, 2013
View Issues
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Report: Give investigators more authority to approve some protocols
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) released a report taking IRBs to task over what they call inappropriate, indeed absurd, alterations in research protocols and overly stringent guidelines for study submission and approval. -
Templates could build better informed consent
Years of improvements to the informed consent process and many hours of developing tools and templates to assist IRBs and investigators in fine tuning informed consent documents have helped pave the way for Consent Builder. -
Consent Builder relies on plain language templates
The University of California at Berkeleys Consent Builder application relies on the simplified language and template structure previously developed by the institutions IRB office. -
Provide brief, effective performance reviews
Sometimes an IRB director will notice that board members lack interest in evaluation processes. Any attempt to assess how each member is doing might be shuffled to the back burner of the schedules of very busy people. -
Program helps "RePAIR" noncompliance issues
A new research ethics program seeks to repair problems when investigators misbehave or are in noncompliance. -
Continuity plans keep IRBs going in hard times
While monstrous hurricanes are not a frequent occurrence, it always pays to be prepared. Hurricane Sandy was something of an anomaly, but cities and hospitals in the Northeast braced for the monster hurricane, putting plans in place to evacuate patients when needed and ways to continue operations even if the worst happened.