Leadership
Laurie Herraiz
Executive Director, UC BRAID
laurie.herraiz@ucbraid.org
415-514-8058
Eric Mah
UC BRAID IRB Project Director

Goals
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Increase capacity for multisite studies
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Establish infrastructure and processes to facilitate use of single IRB review
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Assess current processes, determine potential causes of variability and delay, and develop methods for improvement
UC-IRB: Testing Flexibility
One approach we’re testing is the UC-IRB, a proof of concept project. From across UC we’ve assembled IRB leadership, committee members, staff, and technology, to test a flexible model that solves problems identified by our campuses. The UC-IRB makes it easier to obtain IRB approval, which gets clinical trials up-and-running faster and offers a UC-based alternative to external IRB reviews.
CARE-Q: Quality Assurance for Your IRB
UC BRAID supports CARE-Q, the Consortium of Applied Research Ethics Quality. This alliance between University of California and Stanford University resulted in a simple and cost-effective program for assuring quality and certification of human subjects protections programs. It will soon be available across the nation.
UC TrialQuest: Find IRB-Approved Studies
UC TrialQuest is a database of studies that have been approved by one of the UC IRBs.
A Multisite Study of Performance Drivers among Institutional
Review Boards
ABSTRACT
The time required to obtain Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval is a frequent subject of efforts to reduce unnecessary delays in initiating clinical trials. This study was conducted by and for IRB directors to better understand factors affecting approval times as a first step in developing a quality improvement framework.
807 IRB-approved clinical trials from 5 University of California campuses were analyzed to identify operational and clinical trial characteristics influencing IRB approval times.
Reducing unnecessary delays in obtaining IRB approval will require a quality improvement framework that considers operational and study characteristics as well as the larger institutional regulatory environment.
UCSD Uses a Systems Approach to Assess and Improve IRB Performance