Health Information Management Journal – 50th birthday
This is a year for celebration of health information management publication and research! 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of Health Information Management Journal (HIMJ). HIMJ is a fully peer-reviewed, health information management research journal with extensive international reach and reputation. It is owned by the Health Information Management Association of Australia and published by SAGE, an international publishing house. The journal began modestly and, owing to its successive Editors and Editorial Boards, has grown into the ‘one-of-a-kind journal that today is a pillar of the global and Australian health information management profession’.1 It publishes high quality scholarship in the specialist discipline of health information management. HIMJ consistently receives large volumes of manuscripts reporting original research, professional practice and innovation, reviews, commentaries and informed forum topics from around the world.
The Impact Factor
HIMJ is the only scholarly journal owned by a national health information management association to have an Impact Factor (IF). The IF is a universally-applicable, scientometric index for ranking academic journals. It is based on the mean, annual number of citations of articles published in the journal in the previous two years (2-Year IF), or previous five years (5-Year IF). HIMJ’s 2-Year IF is 3.185; its 5-Year IF is 3.211.Journal IFs are calculated and indexed in Web of Science, a pre-eminent global citation database which includes the official IF rankings of tens of thousands of journals from around the world.2 It is helpful for HIM researchers to know that in addition to Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics), HIMJ is included in these abstracting and indexing databases: CINAHL; Clarivate Analytics: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE); Clarivate Analytics: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI); EBSCOhost; Informit’s Humanities and Social Sciences Collection; MEDLINE; ProQuest; PubMed; and Scopus.
The Editorial Board
HIMJ is overseen by an experienced Editorial Board, which also incorporates an International Advisory Board. The journal enjoys full editorial freedom and independence, consistent with international journal publication ethics. The review process is multi-stage. When manuscripts are received, the Editorial Review Panel undertakes the first stage, involving expert review and screening. Importantly, in the next stage the Editors draw upon the knowledge and skills of topic-expert reviewers from across the globe as part of the rigorous, double-blind peer-review process. The third stage involves intensive Editor-review.
Core educational resource
HIMJ is accessible to subscribers via the SAGE database. The journal’s global research orientation and academic standing mean that it should be essential reading – and available via university, college and healthcare facility libraries – for all students in health information management and related programs and courses around the world.
Why must our profession undertake and publish research?
Research is an essential underpinning of a profession. In the case of health information management it produces new knowledge, supports the researcher’s professional and intellectual development, promotes the profession’s knowledge and prestige, reflects a strong and innovative profession and promotes ‘progress of the society’.3,4 As a critical medium for international dissemination of our profession’s research outcomes, the journal’s standard for acceptance for publication is necessarily very high with regard to the methodological soundness and rigour of the research and the quality of writing. The research outcomes need to be supported by evidence of appropriate research methods so that the work has validity that can be demonstrated through the peer-review process. The need for more members of our profession to undertake and publish research is underscored by the results of a study of HIMJ’s articles from the past five years.5 The publication of articles from 23 countries during the study period indicates HIMJ’s reach and status. At least one Health Information Manager (HIM) was an author in 34.5% of all articles, and in 26.4% of articles an HIM was lead author. Thirty-seven percent of all articles were authored by at least one medical professional. The other authors were pharmacists, public health specialists, non-profession specific health researchers, health informaticians, and nursing and allied health professionals.
The number of HIM authors was a moderately encouraging finding; however, we believe this is not sufficient to assure our profession’s future intellectual and scholarly growth. We encourage experienced and emerging HIM researchers from around the globe to submit high quality manuscripts for consideration for publication: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/him
References
- Robinson K and Lee C (2021) Light the candles! Happy 50th birthday HIMJ! Underpinning an agile, future-facing health information management profession. Health Information Management Journal 50(1-2): 3-5. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1833358320965711
- Clarivate (2021) Web of Science [Online]. Available at: https://clarivate.libguides.com/woscc (accessed: October 14, 2021).
- Kaur CD (2013) Research publications: need for Academicians. Asian Journal of Research in Pharmaceutical Sciences 3(4): 220-228.
- Henderson J and Callen J (2018) Sharing health information management research, work projects and opinions through publication: practical strategies on how to present our work in journals and at conferences. Abstract in Proceedings of the Health Information Management Association of Australia (HIMAA)/National Centre for Classification in Health (NCCH) 35th National Conference. October 31-November 2, Hobart, Tasmania. North Ryde, NSW: HIMAA.
- Robinson K, Callen J, Walker S and Henderson J (2021) A profile of Health Information Managers’ publication in the profession’s literature. Proceedings of the Health Information Management Association of Australia (HIMAA) 38th National Conference. Online. October 25-28. North Ryde, NSW: HIMAA.
Author:
Kerin Robinson, BAppSc(MRA), BHA, MHP, PhD, CHIM
Editor-in-Chief, Health Information Management Journal
