Vol IX, Nov `04

Participants were particularly interested to hear details of the Network's central IRB. Working with Michigan State University's Community Research IRB (CRIRB), the Network will have access to quality reviews, joint educational conferences and training programs, communication and sharing with a wide circle of researchers, and experts to offer advice and guidance.

Peter Vasilenko, PhD, Michigan State University IRB Chair, explained how the IRB will work with the Network and its members. Projects will be submitted to the CRIRB for review. In evaluating proposals, the IRB board will look at their risk-benefit ratio, how researchers will handle consent, protect privacy and confidentiality, and address unanticipated problems and adverse events.

The board also will seek input from the investigators. When a project is approved, the principal investigator will need to take an IRB tutorial, and other research team members will have the option of participating in this training as well.

Use of a centralized IRB offers a collaborative partnership between the IRB and researchers, Vasilenko offered. It also provides opportunities for multi-site studies, which have become increasingly popular among study sponsors and can expand study sample sizes for Network projects.

"This is an important step forward for the Research Network," exclaimed Research Network Director Larry Lawhorne, MD, CMD, "and we are excited about working with Peter and his colleagues."

Lawhorne talked about another proposed activity that also will expand the Research Network's reach and reputation. The Network is considering a proposal to become the long term care panel of the Family Practice Inquiries Network (FPIN), a national, non-profit consortium of academic family physicians, family medicine residency programs, medical librarians, informaticians, computer scientists, and other primary care providers.

This group takes clinical questions offered by practitioners, poses them to its members, and employs a systematic approach to synthesize the best available evidence to answer the questions or determine that more data is necessary. "We could create our own set of queries and our own set of responses to queries," Lawhorne said. He added, "This might be an efficient way to generate ideas for our research and to expand our network of contacts."

Watch for an important update on the FPIN in the January issue of the Foundation newsletter.

Participants heard about many nuts and bolts research issues at the conference. Bernard Ewigman, MD, talked about conducting literature reviews. And Patricia Parmelee, PhD, offered a primer on statistical power. She observed that while it is important for researchers to understand the basics of statistical analysis, she noted, "We're not statisticians. It is not our job to spend time on power computations and analyses. We often trip ourselves up by trying to be more statistically rigorous than we need to be."