Site permission letter vs the site's IRB approval at Chamberlain: two different documents, two different boards
These two pieces of paper get treated as one thing more often than any other pair in a Chamberlain file, and the confusion is expensive because it hides a whole board. A permission letter is a named leader saying yes to your presence. An IRB approval is a review body saying yes to your protocol. The first is a door held open; the second is a decision on the merits, and only one of them can be signed by your preceptor over lunch.
The permission letter is access, signed by a leader at the facility. The site IRB approval is a regulatory decision by the facility's review body. Neither replaces the other, and Chamberlain expects both settled before implementation starts.
What is the actual difference between the two?
Think of it as the difference between being let onto the property and being cleared to run the equipment. A permission letter answers an administrative question: does this organisation agree to host this work, in this unit, with this person present? It is signed by whoever has the authority to make that promise — a chief nursing officer, a director of quality, a unit manager, sometimes a practice owner. It is short, it is on letterhead, and it commits the facility to giving you access.
The site's IRB approval answers a regulatory question instead: has a constituted review body examined this protocol against its own criteria and cleared it to proceed with our people and our records? That body is a committee, not a person. At hospitals and health networks it may be a formal IRB of record; at many facilities it is a nursing research council or an evidence-based practice council that performs the same gatekeeping function under a different name. Chamberlain's own DNP Project & Practicum Handbook points squarely at this when it notes that following a site's procedures for project development may involve contacting the site's Nurse Research team for project approval.
The practical test is who can say no and make it stick. A director can decline to host you, and that ends the conversation. But a director cannot approve a protocol on behalf of a review body that has not seen it — and if the facility has such a body, a letter that predates its review is a letter that will be superseded. That asymmetry is why we open the facility's track before the school's on almost every file that comes through the practice.
Who signs each one, and where does each one land?
The two documents travel to different destinations and prove different things. Laid side by side, the distinction stops being subtle.
| Site permission letter | Site IRB or council approval | |
|---|---|---|
| Who issues it | A named individual with authority over the setting | A committee, by vote or by delegated review |
| What it grants | Access to the setting, the population, the personnel | Clearance for the protocol as written |
| What it examines | Operational fit, workload, the facility's appetite | Risk, consent, privacy, the design itself |
| Form it takes | Letterhead, a signature, a date | A determination or approval notice, often stamped |
| Can it be revised on request | Yes, by asking the signatory | Only through the body's own amendment route |
| Where it goes | Attached to the Chamberlain submission | Attached to the Chamberlain submission as well |
| What it is not | Not a review of your protocol | Not a promise of physical access or staffing |
Both end up in Chamberlain's file, which is the detail people miss. Chamberlain's IRB page, describing what accompanies an application for initial review where applicable, asks for copies of approval letters from other institutional review boards. The school is not asking you to summarise the facility's decision. It wants the facility's own paper.
Where does the clinical affiliation agreement fit?
There is a third document, and it belongs to neither board. Chamberlain requires a clinical affiliation agreement for practicum settings, negotiated between the university and the organisation, with the experiential learning team handling the contracting. It governs your presence as a learner: insurance, liability, supervision, the legal relationship between two institutions.
It does not authorise your project. A facility can hold a current affiliation agreement with Chamberlain, welcome you for practicum hours under it, and still require its research council to review anything you intend to measure, collect, or publish. Treating the agreement as project clearance is the third variant of the same mistake — paper that covers your body in the building being read as paper that covers your protocol.
What does Chamberlain expect to see before implementation?
Chamberlain's route for a practice project is usually a prescreening decision rather than a convened review. The handbook states that most DNP projects will meet prescreening criteria for determining that the project does not constitute human subjects research, which is why the school's track so often closes as a written classification. What the handbook does not do is let that classification stand in for the facility's.
Two passages settle the sequencing. The first tells you to abide by practicum site rules and regulations including identification if an IRB is required at the practicum site in order to implement your DNP project. The second is blunter: all Chamberlain University prescreening and site IRB approvals must be completed before beginning the implementation of the DNP project. Read together, they put the burden of finding the facility's board on you, and they make the later of the two decisions the one that governs your calendar.
This is the whole argument for opening the facility's track early. Chamberlain's file is a file you control; its completeness is the main variable. A research council convenes on an agenda published months out, and no amount of diligence on your part moves that agenda. The step-by-step process article lays out the order of operations across both tracks; where every document gets drafted inside that route is set out on the how-it-works page.
What if the facility has no review body of its own?
Some settings genuinely have none — a small clinic, an independent practice, a community organisation. When that is true, a well-drafted permission letter carries more weight, because it becomes the only facility-side document in the file. It should then be specific enough to stand up to reading: what you will do, with whom, to which records, and on whose authority.
Establish the absence rather than assuming it. Ask the facility, in writing, whether any committee reviews projects involving its personnel, patients, or records, and keep the reply. Ask by function rather than by title, because the body that has to see your protocol may be called a research council, a nursing research committee, an evidence-based practice council, or a quality review group. A facility that says it has no IRB may still route everything through a council under another name.
Where a facility does have a board and a formal relationship makes sense, Chamberlain publishes reliance templates in both directions — one requesting that its IRB defer primary review and oversight to an external board, one requesting that Chamberlain serve as the reviewing board. Reliance is a deliberate arrangement between institutions, not a shortcut you can assert, and it is worth raising early or not at all.
What should the permission letter actually contain?
A letter that says only "we are happy to host this project" invites a follow-up from either board. The version we draft for a liaison's signature answers the questions a reviewer would otherwise have to ask:
- The facility and the unit, named precisely, on organisational letterhead.
- The signatory's role and authority over that setting, stated in the letter rather than inferred from a title block.
- What the project involves, in one or two sentences a reader outside your specialty can follow.
- Who is involved — which personnel, which population, and whether anyone will be approached during working hours.
- What data will be touched, and explicitly whether identifiers leave the facility. This has to agree with your data security plan; a letter implying the facility will receive identifiable results while the plan promises otherwise is a contradiction both boards can see.
- Any conditions the facility attaches, including onboarding, badging, or its own privacy training.
- An acknowledgement of the facility's own review requirement where one exists, so the letter and the council's decision read as one story rather than two.
- A signature and a date. Undated letters age badly and get queried.
Chamberlain's board is explicit that it does not provide advisement or mentoring on study design nor does it create required documents, such as recruitment flyers or consent forms. Neither will the facility's council draft its own permission letter for you. Both boards read documents; somebody else has to write them.
What to do next
If you are holding a signed letter and are not certain whether a review body also stands between you and your first data point, that is the question to settle before anything else is drafted. Book the free application review, attaching the letter, the facility name and a paragraph about the project. We will tell you which review bodies apply, what the letter is missing, and which track to open first. If the letter is sufficient and one board is genuinely all you face, you will hear that too. The FAQ covers what the review includes, and the application checklist lists every document both files need. Your project and your findings remain yours; each board's decision is its own.
Sources
- Chamberlain University, Institutional Review Board — submission for initial review, forms, reliance templates, and the board's stated scope — chamberlain.edu/chamberlain-university-institutional-review-board
- Chamberlain University, DNP Project & Practicum Handbook (practicum responsibilities; prescreening review; site IRB approvals before implementation) — chamberlain.edu/media/3691/dnp-project-practicum-handbook.pdf
- Chamberlain University, Institutional Review Board (leadership listing) — chamberlain.edu/about/leadership/institutional-review-board
- 45 CFR 46.111 — what any board must satisfy itself of before approval; note the privacy provision at (a)(7) — law.cornell.edu · 45 CFR 46.111
- 45 CFR 46.114 — how two institutions may arrange for one board to review on behalf of both — law.cornell.edu · 45 CFR 46.114
Chamberlain's forms, templates and portal change. Where this article and Chamberlain's current handbook or IRB portal differ, the handbook and portal govern. This practice is independent of Chamberlain University and is not affiliated with it.