On June 19, the Journal of Hospital Medicine (JHM) received a higher-than-expected first Impact Factor score, the measure of citations received in 2008 to articles published in 2006 and 2007. The 3.613 initial score ranks JHM No. 21 out of 107 journals in the Internal and General Medicine subject category.
Impact Factor scores are used as a proxy for the importance of a journal to its field. Academic researchers are evaluated on the “impact” of their publications based on this score.
“There are journals that are 20 years old that don’t have impact factors as high as we do,” says Mark V. Williams, MD, FACP, FHM, professor and chief of the division of hospital medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago and editor of JHM. “Hopefully, this will lead to academicians across the world being interested in submitting their scholarly work.”
JHM’s top-cited source is Core Competencies in Hospital Medicine: A Framework for Curriculum Development (www.hospitalmedicine.org/ResourceRoomRedesign/RR_Main/html/Core_Competencies.cfm). The clinical content is an essential tool for practicing hospitalists, providing guidance in the areas of clinical conditions, procedures, healthcare systems, development, and methodology.
“SHM is very proud of our journal, JHM, and getting such a sterling impact factor is a further acknowledgement of JHM’s credibility, reach, and world-class content,” says Larry Wellikson, MD, FHM, CEO of SHM. TH
Freelance Writer Richard Quinn contributed to this report.
Letters
SHM Should Support Reform Measures to Medicare System
As part of healthcare reform, I believe SHM should support the following ideas for Medicare reform:
- Primary-care physician (PCP) reimbursement should increase by 25%;
- Surgical reimbursement should decrease by 10%;
- Medical subspecialist reimbursement should decrease by 10%;
- All HIV/AIDS patients should be covered under Medicaid;
- All end-stage renal disease (ESRD) should be covered under Medicaid;
- Community health center funding should be covered under Medicaid;
- Children’s Health Insurance Plan (CHIP) funding should not come out of the Medicare fund;
- National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding should not come out of the Medicare fund;
- The Medicare tax on income before deductions should have no income ceiling; and
- The Social Security tax should be higher for those earning more than $250,000 per year before any deductions.
These changes would strengthen the Medicare fund to provide for our senior citizens’ healthcare and retirement. The above will be better than budget-neutral. Those to be covered (above) under Medicaid (HIV, ESRD, CHC, etc.) will actually have to pay less out of pocket for medications, services, procedures, and hospitalization.
The disproportionately low reimbursement to PCPs would be partially corrected in line with the medical home program concept. Partial financial correction of the overcompensated specialists and procedurists who dominate the rate commission would be accomplished with only a small amount of financial distress, which PCPs have been suffering for more than a decade.
Robert Beshany, MD,
SHM charter member,
Colorado Springs, Colo.
SHM responds:
SHM advocates for reforms that increase access to affordable healthcare and deliver safer, higher-quality, and more cost-effective healthcare to all Americans. Over the past five years, SHM has become widely respected for our progressive and collaborative approach to healthcare payment reform.
We advocate for:
- Improved care coordination, particularly during transitions of care. We have met with MedPAC, key Congressional leaders, and CMS to advocate for reimbursement that supports better care transitions and reduces unnecessary rehospitalizations.
- Incentive alignment. Providers, hospitals, and payors must have aligned incentives that consistently reward quality as well as evidence-based, cost-effective care. To that end, we have strongly supported such pay-for-performance initiatives as the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative and Hospital Value Based Purchasing. We also support exploration of new payment methodologies, such as bundled payments to accountable-care organizations, which is still at the demonstration project stage. Properly structured, these new reimbursement models could spur innovation, reduce compartmentalization of care, and decrease costs.
- Expanded federal support for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, as well as robust funding for comparative effectiveness research.
- Incentives supporting the adoption of e-prescribing and health information technology.
- Replacement of the flawed Sustainable Growth Rate with a stable, predictable payment methodology.
- Support for initiatives that encourage physicians to choose generalist tracks.
We encourage our members to visit our Legislative Advocacy Web site (www.hospitalmedicine.org/advocacy) to see where we stand on healthcare reform.
Eric M. Siegal, MD, FHM,
chairman, SHM Public
Policy Committee