The IRB office has posted an updated IRB Policy 4.7, Participant Contact.
Remember how the IRB typically requires IRB contact information to be included in consent documents? Well, this policy underscores why that contact information should be included, and how the IRB will process any contacts it receives from participants.
We note that this is one of the few IRB policies that has never been revised since its initial posting in 2005. We’ve updated the title to “Participant Contact” from “Participant Phone Calls.” (In our defense, at least we never named it “Participant Carrier Pigeon Messages.”) Back in 2005, phone calls were how people got in touch, but now people use media like emails. The revised policy also incorporates mention of some of the systems the IRB office now has available to log and process participant contacts.