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In each issue of the VAIRRS Newsletter (every other month), a leading site utilizing the VAIRRS program is selected as a VAIRRS Ambassador. Facilities are evaluated based on participation, enthusiasm and commitment to improving the system and contributing to the benefits the VAIRRS enterprise has to offer. The selected VAIRRS ambassador serves as a great role model to other sites across the country, who want to learn more about VAIRRS and how the program can make their job more efficient and effective.
VAIRRS Experience:
Back in November of 2019, VAIRRS was implemented at the VA Salt Lake City Healthcare System. While a lot of training was provided, users found it challenging to keep up with the vast amount of information sent their way and found it encouraging to have support from the IRBNet Team and Angela Foster, Program Manager, Enterprise Research Data Systems, Office of Research Protections, Policy, and Education (ORPP&E).
“Spending time with Angela Foster, walking staff through the entire process was very helpful,” says VA Salt Lake City Healthcare System. Speaking in more detail with the staff, an exercise Angela Foster ran using the sandbox where various people in the meeting acted as the PI (principal investigator), committee manager, reviewers, committee members, committee chair, etc., and routed the package through R&DC's (Research & Development Committee) final approval, was foundational to understanding VAIRRS.
“That exercise gave the most situational awareness of how to do things, where the issues were, and create our own local processes that are still under consideration and revision,” says VA Salt Lake City Healthcare System.
To recreate that experience, the VA Salt Lake City Healthcare System started having VAIRRS office hours once a week. The goal was to develop a local checklist to move things through the VAIRRS system including active projects, review process, training, work in progress, packages, project expirations and IRB coversheet wizards.