By Tamra Smith
Attended the “Starting at Ground Zero: Assessment of Research Compliance at a Large, Community-Based Healthcare System” and it was fantastic. It was so informative and brought a unique perspective. Rather than research from an AMC program, this session focused on a community based health system that is more fragmented than an AMC. I appreciated how candid they were about some of their challenges. It is a huge undertaking to unify different sized and different focused research groups into one cohesive program. But as they illustrated so well, it is necessary in today’s regulatory environment.
The take away was constant communication and persistence. Changing culture takes time and patience, but it can be done. They started with a risk assessment (of course) to identify gaps, but before they instituted changes, they carefully planned a transition program. This makes so much sense! Transition can be tough, but their consistent messaging combined with a strong partnership between clinical and compliance teams is a great model for similar organizations.