Your DNP project answers to two boards. The slower one sets your start date.
Chamberlain reads a DNP project as quality improvement by design, and its review commonly closes as a determination — the calm track. Your practicum site is the other track: hospital systems and health networks keep their own IRBs and nursing-research councils, and that board signs off on its own calendar, not Chamberlain’s. Independent consultants, we handle the entire Chamberlain IRB process end to end — both boards, every document, the submission, every reply — every week, until both approvals are in writing.
The project, the data and the findings stay yours; the boards’ decisions are their own. Everything in between, we handle. And if one board is all you need, we’ll tell you so.
- IRB application files prepared 2,600+
- preparing Chamberlain files since 2012
- average rating from the professionals we’ve served 4.9 / 5
- files read every week
Two boards, one project
The common surprise in a Chamberlain DNP project isn’t the school’s review — it’s discovering, late in planning, that the practicum site keeps a review of its own. The two boards read the same project and answer different questions.
Board one — Chamberlain’s review
- The DNP project is quality improvement by design, so the school review commonly lands as a determination — a written classification — rather than a convened full-board review.
- It runs through Chamberlain’s current portal, in Chamberlain’s current format; the handbook of record is the one posted today, not the one your cohort remembers.
- CITI training must be current before anything is filed — an expired certificate stalls an otherwise finished application.
- This track is largely in your hands: the file’s completeness decides its pace.
Board two — the site’s review
- Hospital systems and health networks very often keep an IRB of record or a nursing-research council — and it must sign off separately before you touch their staff, their patients, or their data.
- It does not answer to Chamberlain’s calendar. It meets when it meets, on an agenda you don’t control.
- Its forms are its own: a facility application, a support letter from your site liaison, data-use terms in the site’s language.
- Its definition of research is its own, too — the same file Chamberlain calls QI can convene a site board.
The two approvals are separate documents from separate boards. Neither substitutes for the other — and data collection begins only when both are in writing.
Open the site’s track first
One track is a file you control; the other is a calendar you don’t. That asymmetry decides the order of operations: start the site’s process first, and build the Chamberlain file while the site’s board works through its agenda.
The two tracks converge at one milestone. Everything above the junction is paperwork; everything after it is your project.
The same file reads differently on each board
Quality improvement or research isn’t a property of your project — it’s a determination each board makes for itself, with its own people and its own liability in view. Chamberlain can classify your file as QI while the site’s board, reading the same pages beside its own patients and its own charts, classifies it as research and convenes a review. Neither is wrong; they’re answering different questions.
A determination letter binds the board that wrote it and no one else. Chamberlain’s QI determination is not a pass at the site, and a site approval is not a pass at Chamberlain. This is why the two files must tell one story: boards read closely, and a consent sheet that says research inside a file arguing quality improvement invites the hard questions.
The two-board checker
Five questions. It tells you how many boards stand between you and data collection — and it will say so plainly when the answer is one, and you can file it yourself.
question 1 of 5
What we handle, board by board
One project, two boards, one consistent story — and we carry the whole of it, start to finish: the determination and the plan, every document, the submission to each board, and every reply, until both approvals are in writing.
The Chamberlain track
- The determination and the plan — the QI framing settled before a page is drafted, then carried through every section: purpose, measures, dissemination.
- The application in Chamberlain’s current format, answered the way review coordinators read, with CITI records assembled and appendices ordered the way the portal expects.
- Every document in the file — consent, recruitment materials, instruments aligned to the measures, the data-security plan.
- The submission itself, and every reply after it — revision responses and amendments, continuing review — until the determination is in writing.
The site track
- The board of record found and its calendar confirmed, before anything is planned around it.
- The site’s own application, in the site’s own vocabulary — the packet a nursing-research council expects to open.
- Site permission and facility support letters drafted for your liaison’s signature; data-use terms that match what you will actually touch.
- The submission to the site’s IRB or council, and every reply after it, until the site’s approval is in writing.
Carried across both boards
- One consent and information set carrying the required elements, identical in both files.
- One data-security plan that reads the same on both boards.
- Amendments and continuing review on whichever board asks, for as long as the project runs.
The project, the data and the findings are yours; the boards’ decisions are their own. Everything in between — the plan, the documents, both submissions, every reply — we handle, end to end.
The yard crew
Three consultants, two boards, one file. Every Chamberlain project in the practice is read by all three before either board opens it.
Rebecca Lindqvist, DNP, APRN
Lead consultant · both boards
Rebecca settles the determination and the plan before a page is drafted, and carries the Chamberlain file through to the written determination. She reads every file the way a coordinator will, and answers the board’s questions before they are asked.
Abigail Ferraro, MSN, RN
Consent, instruments, data-security
Abigail owns the documents both boards read line by line: consent and information sheets with every required element, instruments aligned to the measures, and a data-security plan that says the same thing in both files. When a revision request comes back about a form, it comes to her.
Noelle Brandt, PhD
Site boards, letters, board correspondence
Noelle finds the site’s board of record, gets its calendar in writing, and drafts the site permission and facility support letters for your liaison’s signature. Every reply to either board, from revision responses to amendments, goes out through her desk.
Two approvals, in their words
From professionals whose projects now have a start date.
I had Chamberlain’s determination in hand and thought I was done. The practice asked one question about my hospital’s nursing-research council and reorganised the whole plan around its calendar. The site approved on its first reading, and my data collection started on the date we had written down.
My project was QI to Chamberlain and research to my health system, and nobody had told me that was possible. They rebuilt the consent sheet and the data-security plan so both boards read the same story, and both approvals came back in writing.
The site board had already returned my application once before I found them. They drafted the revision response, fixed the instruments, and handled every reply after that. I never corresponded with the board again; I just received the approval.
Two boards, one file, and I only ever spoke with Rebecca. The free review told me exactly which door to knock on first, and it was the one I would have left for last.
What it costs
Each package is quoted after the free review, priced to the file in front of us, not to a menu.
Determination & Plan
The reading: which boards you answer to, the QI-or-research determination on each, the document plan, and the site board’s calendar in writing.
Fixed fee, quoted in writing after the free review. No hourly billing.
The Complete File
Determination & Plan, plus every document for both boards built and version-matched, ready to file: the Chamberlain application, the site’s application, consent and information sheets, recruitment materials, instruments aligned, the data-security plan, and the site permission and facility support letters drafted for signature.
Fixed fee, quoted in writing after the free review. No hourly billing.
Full Handover most chosen
The Complete File, plus both submissions, every reply from either board, amendments and continuing review until both approvals are in writing. The whole process off your desk.
Fixed fee, quoted in writing after the free review. No hourly billing.
Request the free application review
Most Chamberlain projects in the practice run on Full Handover.
Signals, answered
The questions that reach the application desk most weeks — each answered in a sentence first, with the longer read beneath. Where Chamberlain’s own rules can move, we point you to Chamberlain’s current handbook or IRB portal rather than guess.
Does a Chamberlain DNP project need IRB approval?
A Chamberlain DNP project is quality improvement by design, so Chamberlain’s review commonly closes as a determination, a written classification, rather than a convened review. You still file the application to obtain that determination in writing.
The determination is Chamberlain’s board’s written read of the file, and it binds that board only. Which documents it wants and in what format is set by Chamberlain’s current handbook and IRB portal, not by what an earlier cohort filed.
Does my practicum site need its own IRB approval too?
Often, yes. Hospital systems and health networks commonly run their own IRB or nursing-research council, and it must sign off separately before you touch their staff, patients or data; the slower board sets your start date.
Its forms are its own — a facility application, a support letter from your liaison, data-use terms in the site’s language — and so is its definition of research. Whether your site keeps such a board is the first question the free review settles.
Which board do I open first?
The site’s. It runs on its own calendar and rarely on Chamberlain’s, so open the site’s process first and build the Chamberlain file while the site’s board works through its agenda.
One track is a file you control; the other is a calendar you don’t. Get the site board’s submission dates in writing and plan backwards from them; the Chamberlain file is assembled while the council works.
Can I collect data before both approvals are in writing?
No. Anything gathered before approval can be invalidated, and there is no retroactive permission from Chamberlain or from the site; data collection begins only when both approvals are in writing.
A baseline pulled from charts, an early staff survey, a pilot week on the unit: each is data, and each counts as collected. Every instrument stays in the drawer until both letters are in hand.
Do I need CITI training?
Yes. CITI training must be current before anything is filed, and in the modules that match your project; an expired or mismatched certificate stalls an otherwise finished application.
Which modules Chamberlain requires is set in Chamberlain’s current handbook or IRB portal, and a site board may name modules of its own. We check both before the file goes in, and the certificates go into both files.
What is the difference between a site permission letter and a site IRB approval?
The permission letter is the organization’s signed permission naming what you may access: people, units, data. The site board’s approval is a separate review with its own file and its own calendar, and one does not stand in for the other.
The letter goes into both files as an appendix; the approval is issued by the site’s board after its own review. Treating the signed letter as the site’s approval is the most common misread we see: the letter opens the door to the site’s board, it does not close the review.
Can the site’s board read my QI project as research?
Yes. Quality improvement or research is a determination each board makes for itself, so the same file Chamberlain calls QI can convene a site board; we design the consent and data handling for the stricter read.
Chamberlain’s QI determination binds Chamberlain’s board only and does not travel to the site. Identifiable patient data is the line most site boards will not read past, so the consent sheet and the data-security plan are written to the stricter of the two reads, and identically in both files.
What happens when a board returns the file?
Returned, not rejected. The board lists what it wants changed; you answer point by point, revise the documents and resubmit, and each return waits out another pass of that board’s calendar.
A revision response is a document of its own: every point quoted, answered, and tied to the revised page. Under Full Handover we draft and send it, and every reply after it, until the approval is in writing.
Do you conduct my research, and what does it cost?
No. We handle the entire IRB process on both boards, end to end, while the project stays yours and the boards’ decisions stay their own; pricing is quoted in writing after the free review, in three packages, Full Handover the premium.
The free application review is the entry: a written read of the project against both tracks, and which board to open first. Determination & Plan, The Complete File and Full Handover are each a fixed fee quoted in writing after that review; no hourly billing.
Where projects lose their start date
Four failures we see again and again — every one of them avoidable on paper, before either board meets.
Data before approval
Anything collected before both approvals are in writing can invalidate the project. There is no retroactive permission — not from Chamberlain, and not from the site.
One letter treated as two
Chamberlain’s determination binds Chamberlain’s board. Walking it into the site as if it covered them reads as a shortcut — and site boards notice shortcuts.
The calendar discovered late
Councils meet on their own schedule. Learn the calendar before you plan around it, not after — it is the single question that most often reorders an entire project.
Files that drift apart
Two boards, two submissions, one project. When the versions disagree — a measure renamed here, a sample widened there — both boards ask why, and both files stop.
Two approvals. One start date.
Bring the project as it stands — a paragraph and a site name is enough. The free review reads it against both tracks and hands you a written read: what each board will want, what’s missing, and which door to knock on first.
Then we take the whole process from there — both tracks, every document, both submissions, every reply — until both approvals are in writing. The project, the data and the findings stay yours.
No obligation. If one board is all you need, that is what the review will say.