Our proposed program will serve to improve the quality of education and enhance the infrastructure of this large multiple Institutional Review Board (IRB) serving the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and our five affiliated institutions. Our long term goal is to establish a highly efficient and effective system of IRB review of protocols that provides accessible technical and educational support to investigators for human subject protection.
Our specific aims are to 1) improve the quality of education in human subject protections by the creation of a comprehensive online tutorial for investigators; 2) improve the quality of continuing education for investigators by creating a series of online topical tutorials; 3) improve the quality of IRB Member education by creating educational programs available in online tutorial; 4) provide these online tutorials to affiliate IRBs within the University of Colorado system to improve consistency between IRBs; 5) Continue enhancement of the COMIRB database to support the development of electronic protocol submission. A major advantage of these new tutorials is that they include the expansion of case studies that will be tailored to individual disciplinary needs such as pediatrics since our current case studies deal with adults. Another major advantage of this program is that IRB member training, virtually unavailable in electronic format now, will be utilized widely by our large IRB and the CU System IRBs to enhance a consistent application and understanding of the federal regulations. In order to accomplish these specific aims, we will work with two co-investigators who have previously developed technology in the creation of online tutorials. Dr. Allan Prochazka who was previously a Co-chair in COMIRB and has extensive expertise in both ethics and human subject protections, will develop the educational modules for investigators, IRB members, and continuing education. Dr. Laurie Shroyer has become an expert in the technological aspects of creating these online tutorials. We also will utilize an Information Technology consultant to assist our database developer in continuing the necessary improvements to the database. A new computer will be established as an additional workstation for updating the current system. A laptop computer will be purchased for presentations of our system to other IRBs and in training investigators in the use of the electronic protocol submission process. We believe this comprehensive program will provide our institution with a higher level of quality, investigator participation and efficiency in review and oversight of human subject research.
