Gift Card Management and Participant Reimbursements
During the present temporary remote work arrangement, the following two areas of our service delivery have been impacted.
Gift Card Management
- We are still able to procure gift cards(physical) and e-gift cards from our vendors. However, delivery may be delayed because of shipping and receiving delays. Once the order has been processed, we ask that the requester of the gift cards contact Facility Operations team to schedule their delivery or pick up.
- We are unable to sell, buy back, or exchange from our gift card (physical) stock as we are not onsite to access our stock.
Study participant reimbursement process
We are unable to process any check requests as we are not onsite to print the checks. We recommend that you consider alternative methods of participant reimbursements during this time. E-gift cards are easier and can be delivered very fast via email.
Please contact DOR-Procurement@kp.org for any additional assistance on these two matters.
Guidance for Conducting Virtual Group Meetings with Research Participants
Use MS Teams
for virtual group meetings with research participants. Teams is Kaiser Permanente’s HIPAA-compliant, TRO-approved organizational solution for virtual meetings, and it works for KP and non-KP email addresses. For instructions and tips on setting up the meeting, including sending an invitation without disclosing participant email addresses, please review this document. You can also find answers to frequently asked questions about using Teams in this FAQ document.
If Teams does not meet your needs, please do not hesitate to reach out to Cathy Chou or Richard Navarro to discuss other options.
Please note that before moving from an IRB-approved in-person group meeting to a virtual one, you must first obtain IRB approval by submitting a modification request via IRBNet, as you normally would when making any changes to the study protocol.
Guidance for Conducting Virtual Visits
Because of the current shelter-in-place order, many research studies are moving to virtual visits with study participants. To help ensure compliance with federal, state, local, and KP requirements when conducting virtual visits, please use MS Teams or HealthCare Anywhere.
For answers to frequently asked questions about using Teams, see these FAQs. In addition, go to the KP Workplace Technologies website, where you can also find this Quick Start Guide, for more information and tips on using Teams.
For HealthCare Anywhere, log in to the site with your NUID and CS password. It is best to use Google Chrome to launch the app, but any browser except for Internet Explorer should work. An overview of the app, as well as a QuickStart guide may be found on the HealthCare Anywhere SharePoint page.
If you have any questions about modifying your study protocol to replace in-person visits with virtual visit(s), please reach out to DOR.IRB.submissions@kp.org as per usual. If you have any other questions, please contact Cathy Chou.
Contact with COVID-exposed Study Participants
For study personnel that are in contact with participants
- If you speak with a study participant who says they have been exposed to coronavirus, please remember that our job is not to provide health care or health care advice. Rather, we should refer the participant to care delivery and make sure they have the number for the Advice Center:
1-866-454-8855. We can also remind them that they can find information and links to virtual care at the KPNC member website.
