Independent Ethics Committee (IEC)

Research Ethics Committee UiTM (REC) is UiTM's own Independent Ethics Committee (IEC) that is registered under the Drug Control Authority (DCA). As of 22 March 2023, there are 14 ethics committees registered with DCA. In addition to the main or centralised ethics committee in UiTM located in Shah Alam main campus, all UiTM’s state branches and faculties had enacted their own ethics committee since 2016 in accordance with the Pekeliling Timbalan Naib Canselor (Penyelidikan dan Inovasi) Bilangan 3 Tahun 2016, Penubuhan Jawatankuasa Penyelidikan di Fakulti dan Cawangan. However, HASA is neither a state branch nor faculty and as such is not permitted to establish its own ethics committee. Furthermore, the creation of an ethics committee in HASA is redundant given the specialist and consultants serving HASA are from the Faculty of Medicine UiTM in which the faculty is already equipped with its own faculty research ethics committee.

REC and Faculty of Medicine FREC (if the study deems to be of minimal risk) are primarily responsible to evaluate, approve or reject research applications to be conducted within UITM at the highest level.

For more information on REC UiTM please visit https://www.recuitm.org/.

For more information on Faculty of Medicine FREC please visit https://medicine.uitm.edu.my/index.php/en/research/ecosystem.

REC UiTM 2023 Meeting Calendar.

Faculty of Medicine Research Ethics Committee (FREC) 2023 Meeting Calendar.

Ethics Application.

Ethics application is done online via UiTM Research Ethics Depository (RED). Non-UiTM personnel may submit their application by choosing the option “guest”. Please choose “Fakulti Perubatan” as the branch of choice for research application evaluation. Research deemed to be more than minimal risk will be evaluated by REC while minimal risk research may be delegated to be reviewed by the Faculty of Medicine FREC. Ethics approval letter is required when applying to conduct research or collect data in HASA.

Institutional Approval.

Principal investigator is required to send a cover/request letter address to HASA director and to fill in Borang permohonan menjalankan penyelidikan di HASA UiTM/PPUiTM. Principal investigator is also required to submit a few REC forms that were submitted via RED during the ethics application processes (see under Document Checklist below).

Courteous reminder that retrospective institutional approval application or conducting research/data collection without institutional approval is improper, unethical and does not conform to the academic and research integrity.

Sub-Investigator and Head of Department Approval.

The principal investigator is also required to elect a minimum of one (1) sub-investigator from HASA who is from the department or discipline related to the research. For example, if the principal investigator would like to conduct research related to critical care nursing, he or she needs to elect a nurse from ICU or other critical care unit to be the sub-investigator. By extension, the principal investigator also needs to obtain permission and approval from the head of the department, in this case, the HOD of the Anaesthesiology department. If you are unsure which department to approach you may contact PJI for recommendation.

Research Processes in HASA.


Request for Electronic Health Records (EHR) data for research.

HASA is proud to be using its internally developed in-house EHR called UniMEDS. In line with the spirit to empower and elevate research culture as a whole, EHR data may be requested for research purposes such as for conducting secondary data analysis. However, in view of security, privacy, and confidentiality concern, open access to UniMEDS cannot be provided to the researcher. Instead, a researcher is required to fill in the EHR data extraction request form Maklumat parameter bagi pengumpulan data [(500-PJI (18/4/28)/Borang (03)] and detail out the data of interest using the format supplied. Final approval will be obtained from HASA director.

PJI's role is to assist and connect the researcher to the Patient Information department and upon receiving the approval letter to conduct research in HASA, the researcher may contact the Patient Information department directlly to schedule an appointment.

Do take note that UniMEDS is under the custodian of HASA’s Patient Information department and as such they reserve the right and the final say on the type of data allowed or can be granted to the researcher. Please allow for up to 14 days for the data to be extracted and compiled for your usage.

Please be reminded that researcher from UiTM is required to sign the Confidentiality Letter of Undertaking while a non-UiTM researcher must sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with the University for this purpose.

Dana Clinical Excellence Grant (DCEG)

DCEG is HASA's maiden research grant available to all clinical staff in HASA.
The grant was created to bolster and encourage clinical research activities in the hospital.

Congratulations to the previous (first) cycle recipients in 2021.

Stay tuned for the next grant opening.

Research Processes in HASA.

Research Progress Report.

Research under investigator-initiated research (IIR) is required to submit a research report biannually every 6 months (before 31^st May and/or 30^th November) until the completion of the research. For the last 6 months of the research period, the researcher may submit an End of Research Report (see below) instead of Research Progress Report to conclude his or her research in HASA.

End of Research Report.

Research under investigator-initiated research (IIR) is required to submit an End of Research Report upon the completion of the data collection stage in HASA.

For example, in the case of ongoing research started in July 2022 and schedule to finish in April 2023, the researcher is required to submit Research Progress Report before 30^th November 2022 and then the End of Research Report in April 2023 or latest before 31^st May 2023.

Publication or Presentation using research findings or data from HASA.

A researcher is required to fill in the Approval Form for Presentation or Publication Submission Using Research Data from HASA with the accompanying drafted publication materials to PJI prior to submission to the organiser/publisher/journal/company. A clear and explicit acknowledgement to HASA must be expressed and a copy of the publication must be provided to PJI for internal reference.