Use of Human Subjects in Research  

Case Study  

Clinical / Records 

Option A.

Contact the 100 patients directly by phone to obtain their consent to use their medical charts, assuring that they will not be identified.

This would not be appropriate.

You should not request the consent of any patients, by phone or by any other means, without the review and approval of your project by a Medical Human Subjects Panel. The Panel will need to review your methodology, including your methods of obtaining informed consent and protecting patient confidentiality, before your project can begin.

In addition, if this project is being conducted at the Stanford Hospital or at the VA Hospital, informed consent for the review of records could be waived. Patients at those hospitals are asked to sign a release stating that their medical records may be used for research purposes.