All
RSSArticles
-
IRB Websites Can Offer a Wealth of Useful Tools
An important and useful function of an IRB’s website is its ability to give researchers — as well as the public — access to a wide variety of forms, guidance, and tools. When created well, an IRB’s website can be easy to navigate. It also should be updated with new and revised information regularly. Like crowdsourcing websites and with permission, an IRB’s website also can adopt and adapt tools that researchers and other IRBs have found useful.
-
Investigators Benefit from Using Online Self-Auditing Tools
One method to improve regulatory compliance while maintaining IRB efficiency lies in teaching investigators how to conduct self-audits of their protocols and studies.
-
Self-Assessing IRB Operations Can Help HRPPs Stay Compliant, on Track
If an IRB sets a goal of greater efficiency, then giving researchers self-assessment tools and using self-auditing tools on IRB operations is a method that can work. These tools can help study coordinators and investigators turn their study protocol submissions from a hot mess into a submission that is mostly compliant and easier to pre-review.
-
Government Accountability Office to Study For-Profit IRBs at Senators’ Request
The Government Accountability Office agreed to “investigate the operations” of commercial IRBs at the request of U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, Sherrod Brown, D-OH, and Bernie Sanders, I-VT.
-
Research Professionals Question Structure, Effectiveness of IRBs
Finding ways to evaluate IRB ethical quality and effectiveness has been an elusive ideal. Two research professionals are advocating for directly measuring quality of board oversight, rather than relying on the structure of the IRB. An upcoming U.S. Government Accountability Office evaluation of commercial IRBs also may promote the conversation.
-
Rapid Diagnostic Testing in the ED for Mononucleosis, Strep Pharyngitis, Influenza, Respiratory Syncytial Virus, and Procalcitonin
Clinicians strive to use the most accurate tests available while also considering other factors, such as cost, ease of use, and turnaround time for results. It is important to understand the limitations of a test while interpreting the results. This issue will deal with a few of the most common rapid or point-of-care tests used in the emergency department.
-
Infectious Disease Alert Updates
Fatal ESBL Infection from Fecal Microbiota Transplant; Second Joint Infection When One Prosthetic Gets Infected?
-
Predictors of Therapy Outcomes for Cryptococcal Meningitis: Failure of In Vitro Susceptibility Testing, Success of Early Fungicidal Activity
Although in vitro susceptibility testing failed to have value in predicting therapeutic outcome in patients with cryptococcal meningitis, detection of a rapid decline in fungal density in cerebrospinal fluid was associated with improved outcomes in a separate study.
-
Antibiotics for Traveler’s Diarrhea
International travel carries a risk of colonization by antimicrobial-resistant intestinal flora. The use of a quinolone, but not a macrolide, during travel further increases the risk of acquisition of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae.
-
Voriconazole vs. Itraconazole for Treatment of Histoplasmosis
A retrospective cohort study found that patients treated with voriconazole had increased mortality during the first 42 days after the start of treatment compared to patients who received itraconazole.