MHCADS Division - Evaluation & Research Committee

Background

The King County Mental Health, Chemical Abuse & Dependency Services Division (MHCADSD) has established an Evaluation and Research Committee to review all evaluation and research proposals utilizing data and/or staff resources of the King County Mental Health Plan (KCMHP), in order to assure that activities are consistent with the KCMHP policies. Substance abuse services and Mental Illness and Drug Dependency (MIDD) services are also under the purview of the Research Committee and must also meet the standards in these policies. The policies can be found online.

Since the Evaluation and Research Committee is not a legally mandated Institutional Review Board (IRB) as outlined in Federal Law CFR 46, proposed research must usually also be approved by an IRB (Human Subjects Committee) as well as by the MHCADSD Evaluation and Research Committee.

Purpose

The purpose of additional review by the King County MHCADSD Evaluation and Research Committee is to promote client confidentiality, informal consent, HIPAA compliance and good research practices. One major consideration of the Evaluation and Research Committee is that no client identifying information, such as name, address or phone number, shall be released without the prior signed authorization of the client. An additional concern is that research shall not negatively impact MHCADSD information systems, clinical care or draw on resources designated for clinical care.

Procedures

The Evaluation and Research Committee has prepared a checklist (see column on the right) in order to organize proposal submission and alert the project investigator to the documents required for review and approval. This approval process is not designed to delay or impede research. We will try to work within the investigators schedule as much as possible to expedite the review process.

The Evaluation and Research Committee will give conditional research approval pending approval by the Institutional Review Board chosen, and will write a letter that may be included in the IRB package. (We must be notified if changes are made to the research protocol whether this change is made in response to the IRB or for other reasons.) However, final IRB approval is required before research may actually begin. We require a copy of the final IRB approval letter and stamped cover sheet for our records.

This policy does not pertain to quality assurance or improvement activities done by individual subcontractors. One way to differentiate quality activities from research is to consider whether generalization to a larger population and/or publication is an objective. If there is a question about whether a particular activity is covered by this policy, please contact René Franzen.