Reports Surface SBA, HHS Challenges

Two reports released lated in 2001 by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) highlight challenges presently faced by the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

In Current Structure Presents Challenges for Service, the GAO addresses the issues posed by SBA's current organizational alignment and presents "information SBA should consider in determining if and how to reorganize." Such issues, including ineffective lines of communication and confusion over the mission of district offices, are said "to impede the efforts of SBA staff to effectively deliver services." The GAO report does not make recommendations to SBA; however, the report calls the restructuring efforts of other federal agencies "a framework and a set of steps and considerations that may prove useful to SBA."

The GAO addresses a different issue in Biomedical Research: HHS Direction Needed to Address Financial Conflicts of Interest, namely that some collaborations are concerned with research investigators or institutions being overly interested in "the financial rewards of the research, compromising its integrity and the safety of human subjects." Such financial interest is said to promote a conflict of interest among the collaborations. In its report, the GAO examines how academic research institutions are implementing HHS' regulations governing individual investigators' financial interests and how conflicts of interest are being managed. Presently, HHS' method of handling conflicts in biomedical research is limited in its ability to preserve research integrity and protect human subjects, the report says. The GAO recommends that HHS "undertake efforts to communicate best practices for institutions...(and) develop specific guidance or regulations" to prevent further conflicts.