Editorial - (2012) Volume 20, Issue 6
Professor of Primary and Prehospital Health Care, School of Health and Social Care, University of Lincoln, UK
Quality in Primary Care completed its 10th year and 20th volume as a peer-reviewed journal in 2012, a year which has seen health systems around the world increasingly recognise the pivotal role of primary care for higher effectiveness, greater safety and better patient experience, and an environment where quality improvement, leadership and teamwork are seen as integral to primary care.
Highlights of the journal this year have been a special themed issue on interprofessional education,[1] with Keith Stevenson as guest editor, and closely related to this, the Position Paper led by Marianne Samuelson and colleagues from the European Forum for Primary Care on interprofessional collaboration.[2] As Hugh Barr eloquently stated in his guest editorial for the themed issue entitled ‘Quality, everybody’s business’, ‘No one profession can respond adequately to the demands of today’s practice, least of all primary care, where more and more services are located.’[3]
Interprofessional working and education is an international issue, and work on another Position Paper on Interprofessional Education, led by Loes van Amsterdam,[4] is due to be published in the journal next year. In another editorial on leadership for quality, Amanda Howe and co-authors state ‘we do not know where things are going wrong, we do not knowwhat to do about it if we are aware of problems, and we apply our individual energies in isolation where shared organisational action could be more effective and less onerous’.[5]
Quality in Primary Care will become ever more important as a vehicle for communicating advances in the science of quality improvement and its application to family and community practice. This is reflected in the range, quality and origin of submissions to the journal which are increasingly international. International collaboration is also greater, with over 17% of articles by researchers from more than one country. Last year we received 77 submissions to the journal. These were from the United Kingdom (32 submissions), Australia and New Zealand (10), mainland Europe (16), the United States and Canada (13), South America (1), the Middle East and Asia (4).
Most articles submitted in 2011 were research papers (51); other formats included editorials or guest editorials (6), articles on quality improvement in action (4), short reports (2), discussion papers (8), practitioner perspective (1), international exchange (4) and quality digest (1) articles. For articles submitted in 2012, the average time (for articles published or rejected) was 233 days from submission to publication, Acknowledgements 3.5 days, initial decision 105 days and submission to final decision 161 days. We initially reject around 50% of unsolicited papers, although some of these are published following extensive revision and resubmission. Overall, excluding commissioned articles and editorials, 80% of papers were accepted or accepted subject to revision.
Articles in the journal are receiving an increasing number of citations, with a higher proportion of articles being cited since its inception. The unofficial impact factor for Quality in Primary Care (number of citations per article per year over the previous two years calculated usingwww.scimagojr.com) continues to increase, from 0.60 in 2010 to 0.97 in 2011.
I would like to thank all the members of the editorial board for contributing unstintingly to the journal. Peer Reviewers are carefully selected for expertise in their field, and I am grateful for their important contribution to the success of the journal. A full list of Peer Reviewers is included below. I would like to thank Sue Bowler, the Editorial Assistant for the journal, Viet Hai Phung, who has provided editorial support, and Andrea Hargreaves, Journals Manager at Radcliffe, for their work on the journal over the past year.
We look forward to your ongoing support, whether as a reader, contributor or reviewer. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you, our readers and contributors, all good wishes of the season and success for the next year and beyond.
Adolfo Ariza
Andrea M. Wessell
Ann-Brit Zakrisson
Bernadine Pinto
Byrd Quinlivan
Carsten Hendriksen
Chiara Bonetto
Christos Lionis
Coral Sirdifield
Daren K Heyland
David Cunningham
Donald Barr
Andrew Hall
Andy Meal
Caroline Bulsara
David Haggstrom
Hans van der Wouden
Isobel Cameron
Jonathan C. Hill
Jonathan Graffy
Jackie Street
Jane Lewis
Jon Duke
Kevork Hopayian
Kelly J. Kelleher
Kerri Wright
Margaret C. Watson
Mary Stergiou-Kita
Michela Tinelli
Nicholas Steel
Nick Theobald
Peter Bower
Roderick Orner
Ruth Webster
Ryan Combs
Sophie Desroches
Stephen Barenkamp
Stephen Gillam
Stephen Neville
Therese Zink
Tilley Pain
Tim Lesar
Tim Swanwick
Elizabeth Evans
Gareth Morgan
Gary Abel
Hana Burgess
James Jarrett
Janet Walker
Janko Kersnik
Jo Middlemass
John Sharvill
Jos H. Verbeek
Karen Windle
Kath Checkland
Katherine Checkland
Keith Stevenson
Ken Brown
Kenneth A. Schwartz
Laura Militello
Leslie Hicks
Marina Bianchi
Markos Klonizakis
Megan Crawford
Simon Kyle
Meghan Gannon
Michelle Hargreaves
Olga Koslowska
Patricial Kenney
Paul Milne
Brian McKinstry
Carole Upshur
Chris Salisbury
Graham Lappin
Michael Ashburn
Malcolm Lewis
Nigel Sparrow
Richard Baker
Sharon Lawn
Walter Vandereycken
Christian Mallen
D. David Persaud
Sophia Chan
Puja Myles
Richard Puleston
Sarah Redsell
Sarah Tonkin-Crine
Sian Oram
Stefan Greß
Steven Ornstein
Surinder Singh
Tjalling de Vries
Trevor Simpson
Val Wilson
Viet-Hai Phung
Zahid Asghar
