The revised Common Rule governing human subjects research gave institutions the freedom to do away with continuing review of certain studies. The Ohio State University (OSU) implemented the Annual Status Report (ASR) in its place.[1]
According to Andrew Hedrick, senior institutional review board (IRB) protocol analyst in OSU’s Office of Responsible Research Practices, when developing a mechanism like the ASR for studies that no longer need continuing review, questions institutions need to ask themselves are: “What do you want to get out of this process” for the human research protections program, and “how much information is desired”?
“Are you still wanting to gather a lot of information about what’s going on with a study? Or are you wanting to gather just the minimal information to know that everything’s still going right, and you can get that investigator out the door?” he asked.