Abstract
The editorial board of your Journal met at the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) meeting in Orlando, Florida, on April 23 and some of the recommendations to your editors deserve distribution. But first, we should explain some things about your editorial board.
Every author who has published in the Journal joins a huge panel of potential reviewers. The publisher maintains a rather large cache of names of everyone who has submitted and published in the Journal. When invited to review the work of our submissions, many distinguish themselves as insightful and articulate evaluators who provide, we believe, tremendous help to the contributors. This is a very important step in the peer review process. Over the years, outstanding reviewers are asked to join the editorial board, and board members whose efforts have perhaps moved on to greater endeavors rotate off. The editorial board includes many past presidents of the ATA and international authorities in a variety of interdisciplinary areas. There are experts from academia, government, and industry, and include those adept policy makers. There were no additions or departures from the editorial board this year.
We meet each year and review the state of the Journal and consider new directions. We recognize the best article of the year, and this year a dear friend and colleague, Rashid Bashshur, and his coauthors received the award for their 2016 publication “The Empirical Foundations of Telemedicine Interventions in Primary Care.” 1 We also recognize the reviewers who made the most responses to the huge task of reviewing the 282 articles that resulted in 125 publications in 2016.
Several items of discussion are of note, although none represents any departure from the ways in which the Journal has been running, but clarification is very helpful. First, there are some realities in that >50% of the submissions are rejected. This number is expected to rise to 65% in the near term. Competition for publication is greater than ever; there are fine articles we would have published 10 years ago that are no longer competitive. The Journal has expanded to 12 issues per year and we can accommodate 10–12 articles per issue. We asked the editorial board and reviewers to be ever more constructive in the evaluation of articles, especially if they are rejected. We are determined to help the authors toward better work and more competitive submissions in the future. The authors are very good in responding to criticisms for revision by including response to the reviewer in the narrative of the article. The criticisms are those of the reviewers, of course, but almost certainly would be questions asked by readers that can be answered preemptively in the final article.
Second, it is clear that articles that are preliminary reports, pilot studies, and feasibility studies are not well received by our readers. However, an author may consider a report a pilot study but in fact there is a huge amount of data presented that validates important points in a statistically respectable way. Our readers expect reports to be from pertinent, well organized studies with sufficient data points, subjects, etc. to make a compelling story, useful to their practices. The reports from all over the world should somehow be readily transferrable to other parts of the world. Thus, your articles are going to be well cited and influence the practice of telemedicine.
Third, it is not rare that someone has an opinion based on careful study and reflection that would be useful to our readers. There may not be new data, but the opinions from leaders in our field can be instructive to the readership. Therefore, we solicit opinion or concept articles of 1,000 words or less as a category for consideration. This new category will soon be reflected in instructions on our Web site. Such submissions will be peer reviewed.
Fourth, we encourage letters to the editor, which are related to something already published in the Journal, and the author of the article, which is the object of the letter, will be invited to reply. Such a dialogue in this forum we hope will be useful to our readers. Letters to the Editors will be published as space allows and will not be peer reviewed beyond the offices of the editors.
As the Journal approaches its 25th year in 2019, we are committed to making it a vital and useful part of the telemedicine community. Its impact is increasing and it is read the world over! Last year there were 106,000 full text downloads and our abstracts were downloaded 1.7 million times. The Journal has subscriptions in more than 170 countries and we hope to see an even broader readership with a journal responsive to those readers. We can follow the preferences of the readers by downloads of specific articles.
We are very grateful to our publisher, Mary Ann Liebert, and our managing editor, Sophie Mohin, who attended our meeting and actively participated in the discussion, taking a wide range of questions from the editorial board. Our Journal has tremendous freedom and support with an experienced and interactive publishing staff. It is a privilege for us to be your editors and we will continue to listen, interact, and strive to make the Journal always better and devoted to the interests of our readers.
News from the ATA
This year's annual meeting of ATA was well attended and it highlighted new technologies and research efforts in the field. We bring a few salient points that have enhanced the field to your attention. These included recognition of awardees for leadership, best student presentation, a new College of Fellow's scholarship, and recognition of new Fellows.
Associate editor and contributor to this Journal, Elizabeth Krupinski, was recognized with the Individual Leadership award for her contributions to the ATA over the course of many years. The ATA College of Fellows inducts new Fellows each year. A Fellow is an individual who has participated in the ATA and the field for a significant amount of time. The class of 2017 (Class No. 9) included the following individuals: Bart Demaerschalk, Kathleen Myers, Herbert Rogove, Jay Shore, Reed Tuckson, and Carolyn Turvey. The Fellows were recognized during the annual ATA Leadership Dinner and were formally inducted during the College of Fellows annual business meeting.
The College of Fellow has entered its 9th year and has established an annual scholarship for an individual who in the opinion of the Fellows presented an outstanding article. This year the recipient was Justin Whetten, a PhD candidate at the University of New Mexico. His article and presentation were entitled “Benefits of Neuroemergent Telemedicine Consultation Program.” This article also received the best student article award.
As always, the ATA leadership and staff put together a wonderful annual meeting for us all to learn something new, interact with colleagues, and develop lasting relationships that help us all forge a new path in healthcare for both our patients and ourselves.