Morehouse School of Medicine's (MSM) Clinical Research Center (CRC) successfully passed its Ambulatory Health Care Accreditation and no requirements for improvement were identified by the Joint Commission.

The Joint Commission conducted a two-day review of the CRC on May 11 -12. This is the fourth accreditation survey for the CRC and its first unannounced visit. "Thanks to our leadership team, and to the entire CRC faculty and staff, for always working together as a team, to maintain a culture of excellence and safety for research participants at MSM's Clinical Research Center," said Elizabeth Ofili, M.D., M.P.H., director of the CRC, associate dean for MSM Clinical Research, professor of Medicine and chief of Cardiology. "We are also grateful to members of the MSM community for going beyond the call of duty to fully support the JCAHO review process."

The Joint Commission's Ambulatory Care Accreditation Program was established in 1975, and today more than 1,600 freestanding ambulatory care organizations are Joint Commission-accredited. These organizations generally fall into the broad categories of surgical, medical/dental and diagnostic/therapeutic services, and represent a variety of settings.

The CRC was established in 1996 to facilitate investigator-initiated and multicenter clinical trials in cardiovascular disease, cancer, clinical pharmacology, HIV and AIDS and community-based research. It is the first freestanding outpatient research facility of its kind in the nation to received accreditation by the Joint Commission.

The Joint Commission's standards address the ambulatory care organization's performance in specific areas, and specify requirements to ensure that patient care is provided in a safe manner. The Joint Commission develops its standards in consultation with health care experts, providers and researchers, as well as consumers. The standards-based performance areas for ambulatory care organizations are:

The CRC has been successful in developing a clinical research infrastructure that is uniquely suited to the pursuit of clinical and translational research in minority and underrepresented communities. The CRC provides comprehensive support for clinical investigation with its various core resources and facilities.

These resources include a noninvasive cardiovascular and hemodynamic core laboratory, fully equipped private examination rooms, Analytical and Protein Profiling laboratory, a Biostatistical and Data Management Core, a Nursing Core, a Recruitment/Retention core responsible for all study participant enrollment activities, and a new Bionutrition Core. The MSM CRC is funded by the National Center for Research Resources, a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the Research Center at Minority Institutions program (grant # 5P20RR11104).