EXPANDING THE BOUNDARIES OF RESEARCH IN HEALTHCARE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT.

FOREWORD 

The International Society for Research in Healthcare Financial Management (RHFM), one of the world's first, primarily Internet-based professional associations, is growing and changing. Part of the change is that Founder and Director, Dana Forgione asked me to become Senior Editor of the journal so he can move the organization forward in new and exciting ways. It is an honor to be entrusted with this important publication. I promise to maintain Dana's high level of relevance, scholarship and quality for the journal. For those who wish to know more about who I am and where I come from, my Staff biosketch can be accessed through the RHFM webpage, www.RHFM.org.

Authors often think their manuscripts fall into a black hole when they submit to some journals. A hint of mystery is added when one contacts the editor to check on a manuscript, and hears "It's out for review." What does that mean? At RHFM, we are working to take some of the mystery out of the manuscript review process.

After our 6th Annual International Symposium & Workshop 2000 at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore on the Inner Harbor in beautiful downtown Baltimore, Maryland USA, all conference participant records were reviewed for the presence of a completed manuscript and a request for submission to the journal by the deadline. Records which did not have these materials were set aside. Next all the completed records were reviewed for the following: quality of submission, appropriateness of fit for RHFM, timeliness of the topic and representativeness of our audience. Papers that did not meet these criteria were also set aside.

Simultaneous with the record review, I contacted the RHFM Editorial Board members to inform them of the change in Senior Editor and ensure their continued commitment and participation. New Editorial Board members have been recruited from a wide variety of countries and institutions. The RHFM Editorial Board is a working board. They have promised to review two to three papers per year and return their reviews within three weeks, all electronically via the Internet.

Like most other academic and professional journals (Campion et al. 2000; Macrina 2000; JAMA 2001) every paper receives a review from two reviewers. Our reviewers are knowledgeable about healthcare financial management and have been deemed to be experts in their respective disciplines. Reviewers are sent blinded manuscripts. That is, all identifying information is removed and the manuscript is assigned a number. Standardized reviewer forms are sent along with the blinded manuscript. The review forms that are used for this process ask the reviewer to comment on the interest of the paper to the readership of RHFM, the originality and content of the paper, the study design, the statistical analysis, the validity of conclusions, and the clarity of the writing. Reviewers are also asked to make recommendations regarding acceptance, rejection or reconsideration with revisions.

Peer review is a highly "labor-intensive and time-consuming process" (Campion et al. 2000, p. 1485). Sometimes manuscripts do not move as quickly as authors, editors and reviewers would like. When reviews are returned from the two outside reviewers, I send the comments to the authors. When both reviewers recommend to me that a manuscript be rejected, the authors are urged to review the comments of the reviewers carefully and to consider us for future submissions.

When one or both reviewers recommend acceptance with revisions, authors are informed that their manuscript needs revisions before we can accept it for RHFM. They are asked to carefully review the comments from the reviewers and respond to each reviewer's comment or question, point by point. They are told that their manuscript revisions should address each of these comments. They are also asked to let me know if they plan to respond to the reviewers and to make these revisions, as soon as possible. If they choose to respond to the reviewers and to make the revisions, they are asked to have their responses to the reviewers and the revisions in their manuscript back to me within three weeks.

All authors are asked to adhere to our newly revised guidelines found in the Information for Authors pages (which are posted at www.RHFM.org and are on pages 107-108 in this issue.) Upon final editorial acceptance of the manuscript, authors are asked to submit a signed Copyright Release Agreement and a Manuscript Fee. Accepted manuscripts are forwarded for typesetting and page layout. Manuscripts entering the page layout phase are prepared for immediate publication. Camera-ready copy from this phase is returned to the author(s) for final proof reading. Page proofs are sent to authors and the corrected proof pages must be returned to the editor for correction of any typographical errors within 10 days.

Everyone involved in RHFM understands that your manuscript submissions represent labors of love for your professional lives. At this journal, we try to provide an equitable process by which these fruits of your labors can be evaluated. With your help, we can continue to maintain the integrity of the journal that Dana Forgione has worked so hard to bring to the forefront of the field of RESEARCH IN HEALTHCARE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT.

REFERENCES

Campion, E.W., G.D. Curfman, J.M. Drazen (2000) "Tracking the Peer Review Process," New England Journal of Medicine, 343(20):1485-1486.

Journal of the American Medical Association (2001) "Instructions for Authors," Journal of the American Medical Association, 285(1):99-105.

Macrina, F.L. (2000) Scientific Integrity: An Introductory Text with Cases, (2nd Ed.), Washington, DC: ASM Press, 49-72.

Address for correspondence: Sharon Bell Buchbinder, Department of Health Science, Towson University, 8000 York Road, Towson, MD 21252-0001 USA, [e-mail].