AAHRPP accredits nine more research organizations

The Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs announced that it has accredited nine more research organizations—in the U.S., Belgium , mainland China and Taiwan, China.

The newly accredited organizations include hospitals, academic institutions and integrated health care systems:

Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University,Beijing, mainland China

Chi Mei Medical Center, Tainan Taiwan, China

Houston Methodist,Houston, Texas

Joseph Health,Irvine, California

State University of New York College of Optometry,New York, New York

Taipei Veterans General Hospital,Taipei, Taiwan, China

Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel, inBrussels, Belgium

TheUniversity of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Xiyuan Hospital of China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences,Beijing, mainland China

"These accreditations underscore that AAHRPP standards for research protections have become the international benchmark for high-quality human research—and that makes a difference for everyone," AAHRPP president and CEO Elyse I. Summers said.

"Organizations that commit to AAHRPP accreditation also commit to conducting top-tier ethical research, so we can have confidence in the results and the advances they make possible."

To date, 238 organizations have earned AAHRPP accreditation. Forty-one are located outside the U.S. "Increasingly, organizations recognize that clinical research is a global enterprise, and protecting participants is a global responsibility," Summers said.

To earn AAHRPP accreditation, organizations must demonstrate that they have built extensive safeguards into every level of their research operation and adhere to high standards for research. In today’s global, collaborative research enterprise, organizations often rely on AAHRPP accreditation status to help identify trusted research partners.

AAHRPP has accredited organizations in 47 states, Belgium , Brazil , Canada,  mainland  China, India ,Mexico , Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia , Singapore , South Africa , Taiwan, China and Thailand . All major U.S. independent institutional review boards are AAHRPP accredited. Over 60 percent of U.S. research-intensive universities and 65 percent of U.S. medical schools are AAHRPP accredited or have begun the accreditation process. The National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest public funder of research, has earned accreditation, as has Pfizer, the largest industry sponsor of clinical research.