Academy Creates Internal IRB

Expanding research efforts led the Academy to establish an internal institutional review board earlier this year.

During the past five years, research the Academy conducted has been reviewed by the University of Missouri-Kansas City Social Science Institutional Review Board. However, "AAFP research has grown in the numbers of research projects and their complexity," said John Baumann, Ph.D., chair of the new AAFP IRB and vice provost for research at UMKC, in explaining the reasoning behind the decision to move to an internal IRB. In addition, some AAFP projects include external organizations, which may make the review more complicated, he added.

The move also was prompted by the UMKC IRB notifying the Academy that it would not be able to continue handling both UMKC and AAFP requests for review, said Baumann. In response, an AAFP staff task force last year considered whether to purchase reviews from other IRBs or have the Academy establish its own IRB.

"The task force decided it would be better for the Academy to have its own IRB for efficiency and for the safety of the subjects in our research projects," said Thomas Robinett, J.D., AAFP's general counsel and the new IRB's institutional officer.

The Academy’s IRB already has reviewed research proposals from the AAFP National Research Network on such topics as postpartum depression and unreimbursed health care.