Ever wonder how the IRB office and board spend their time? We serve the research communities of UAMS and ACH, and we also pick up the occasional study from the Clinton School of Public Service and the Arkansas Department of Health.
We have right around 1,000 open human subject research protocols in CLARA right now (1,031, at the last precise count this summer). Here’s a breakdown of what has crossed our computer screens over the last four fiscal years, and how long it took new studies to achieve IRB approval.
Important caveats: The mean and median days to approval are calendar days, not just business days, and they represent the days between CLARA submission and IRB approval. So these timeframes encompass all the prereviews studies undergo before they ever make it to the IRB, and not just the time studies spend in the IRB office. The IRB office is the last step of the approval process.