IBC Quality Improvement

The University of New Mexico (UNM) BioHazard Compliance (BHC) office in the Health Science Center (HSC) Office of Research (OR) has tested a quality improvement initiative that might be valuable to other institutions that have an Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC). In conjunction with other OR compliance units, we have implemented a Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) program based on the scientific method (Nolte et al., 2008) and designed to improve administrative processes. An area that needed improvement was our ability to concisely translate IBC protocol review contingencies into formalized written response letters to investigators in an expeditious manner. Our IBC is responsible for reviewing recombinant DNA, BSL-2, and BSL-3 research. As a CQI initiative, the IBC administrators wanted to streamline the protocol review process to decrease the turnaround time. A long protocol review process adversely impacts the ability of investigators to initiate research and affects their satisfaction with our office. A retrospective analysis of protocol review times led us to focus on drafting protocol contingency letters during the IBC meetings. Protocol contingencies are concerns that the reviewers have with the submitted research protocols. These must be reconciled before the investigator is allowed to proceed with the proposed experiments. Previously, the IBC administrators would document the concerns of the protocol reviewers and other committee members during committee meetings and collate their findings after the meeting. This process led to interpretive differences