In the health care industry, we read medical journals to stay on top of the latest scientific research and incorporate advances that improve patient care and run our operations more effectively. An article in a leading journal such as The Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, or Annals of Internal Medicine has been carefully chosen by expert editors, peer-reviewed for scientific validity, and vetted to ensure the safety and efficacy of medical treatments advocated.
Yet even top journals have gaps in their content and vision. Just this month, the chief editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association and JAMA Network stepped down amid controversy surrounding a colleague’s dismissive podcast comments regarding structural racism in medicine.
Another limitation is that some of the most interesting clinical and operational advances occurring in health care today never make it into the top journals. Most of the research these journals publish is conducted in partnership with large, university-based health systems. Yet, funding for graduate medical education increasingly prioritizes rural and underserved communities, often far from medical schools. These generally smaller programs feature excellent researchers and faculty doing high-quality work. But, their studies are more likely to be single system, single hospital, or single program in size, and therefore unlikely to be published in major clinical and educational journals.
This state of affairs indicated an unmet need for an independent platform showcasing the high-quality clinical research and practice innovations of smaller community health and integrated health delivery systems. To fill this need, we recently launched Advances in Clinical Medical Research & Healthcare Delivery.
A Rochester Regional Health venture, ACMRHD is a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary, multispecialty journal that addresses important advances in medical research, education, and health care delivery. Hemant Kalia M.D., an RRH specialist in pain management, is the journal’s editor-in-chief. I serve as associate editor-in-chief.
Our June 1 inaugural issue includes articles on text mining to leverage community knowledge; clinical presentation of COVID-19 in Chemung and Schuyler counties; the COVID-driven acceleration of telemedicine; and the challenges of lagging diversity and inclusion in health care.
The journal is open access, meaning that online access is free and unrestricted. To eliminate barriers to equity in publishing, we charge authors no fees. This also avoids conflicts of interest that might compromise peer-review standards.
ACMRHD’s mission is to promote excellence in clinical research and health care delivery models. To achieve this, we promote diversity and inclusion, both in the subject matter of the articles we publish and in the demographics of our team. We are one of the few journals to collect DEI data on authors and reviewers, and we plan to publish this annually. Too often, the world of medical publishing has been a bastion of white males, and this needs to change.
ACMRHD publishes peer-reviewed reports of original research; guidelines; case reports and series; narrative reviews; systematic reviews; and commentaries on a broad range of topics. The journal is most interested in manuscripts that will influence practice and address important advances in medical research, education, and health care delivery.
Anyone may submit an original article to be considered for publication. For more information on ACMRHD policies, requirements, and restrictions, please check our submission guidelines.
For all of us interested in advancing health care excellence and equity, ACMRHD brings exciting new opportunities to engage with vital topics in our field—both as readers and as authors. And it’s just a click away.
Richard L. Alweis, MD, FACP, is a specialist in internal medicine, and the designated institutional official and associate chief medical officer for education at Rochester Regional Health.