​​ARECCI Ethics Guidelines and Screening Tools​

A pRoject Ethics Community Consensus Initiative (ARECCI) program helps address and mitigate ethical risks through decision support tools, training opportunities and project ethics consultation.

ARECCI Decision Support Tools

ARECCI supports two complimentary tools to assist project sponsors and organizations.

These tools have been co-developed and validated by the ARECCI community, which includes experts in quality improvement, program evaluation, data, privacy, clinical and research ethics. Through a process of consensus, the ARECCI community identified and defined:

  • Project risk level
  • Types of ethical risks
  • Appropriate type of ethics review

Each tool aids in the identification of ethical areas of concern.

ARECCI Project Ethics Course

The ARECCI Project Ethics Course is designed to help participants develop and apply practical knowledge and skills in ethics to projects currently underway.

At the end of the course, attendees will have an increased awareness of ethical risks jeopardizing projects and have developed a structured approach to identify and address these ethics issues for project success.

Further information about ARECCI training is available here.

Consultation

Protecting patients and their information from unintended harms applies to quality improvement and evaluation projects in health and human services. ARECCI provides a Second Opinion Review (SOR) process for Alberta-based projects that have been identified as above minimal risk by the ARECCI screening tool.

The consultation process matches project leads with an independent and trained Second Opinion Reviewer. The reviewer will contact the project lead(s) to schedule a telephone call to discuss the project’s ethics risks and form potential mitigation strategies. Afterwards, the project team will receive a Second Opinion Review Letter that summarizes the discussion.

Request a Second Opinion Review here.