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Health Affairs seeks submissions for a series of articles focusing on the practice of medicine

Posted about 7 years ago by Tracy Kiele

Health Affairs seeks submissions for a series of articles focusing on the practice of medicine that we will begin publishing in early 2017. The series will explore the broad practice environment and how features of that environment affect physicians, other clinicians, and the practice of medicine on a number of dimensions.

The practice environment includes forces that physicians and other clinicians respond to (both on a daily basis and in a strategic sense), such as regulatory requirements, payment policy, quality measurement, economic and market influences, the organization of care, technology, professional standards, etc. We are interested in papers that reflect on and explore how such factors affect care delivery, including consideration of broader implications for health care spending, access to care, and health outcomes.

We will consider new empirical research, essays, reviews, and analysis/commentaries that address these topics.

We are grateful to the Physicians Foundation for providing support for this series.

Below is a list of topics that would be appropriate to explore in this series. We welcome submissions on related and complementary topics/questions that satisfy the other criteria noted above.

  • Market pressures and organization of care
  • Provider consolidation, vertical integration, antitrust
    • Private practice and employment in larger institutions
        • Multispecialty and single specialty group practice
        • Solo and group   practice
        • Practice ownership
        • Participation in alternative models of care, such as Accountable Care Organizations
        • Juggling business and professional obligations
        • “Disruptors” of care, e.g., retail clinics, telemedicine, concierge medicine
        • Interprofessional care and team care
  • The regulatory environment
  • Payment policy and quality measurement
  • Are metrics aligned with desired outcomes and “controllable” factors?
    • Effects on practice, organization, care, population health, spending
  • Impact of EHRs and meaningful use on clinical practice, care, outcomes
  • The future of primary care
  • Growing demands and complexity, e.g., screening, population health, coordination of care, chronic care management, cost management
    • Incorporating social determinants into practice (e.g., Accountable Health Communities)
  • Challenges in underserved areas and caring for underserved patients
  • Changing demographics of providers and patients
  • Consumers and patients as they relate to the practice of medicine
  • Shared decision making
    • Dealing with clashing perceptions of the role of the physician
        • Financial incentives for patients: are they aligned with quality goals?
        • Direct-to-consumer marketing
  • Science, technology, and care
  • Scientific discovery and its effect on clinical practice
    • Public attitudes toward science and its effect on practice
        • Evidence based medicine
  • Medical education and the workforce
  • Trends in generalist and specialty preferences
    • Safety, morale, and wellbeing
        • Practice hours

Other considerations
We invite submissions from anyone with an interest in this topic. Health Affairs reaches a wide audience that includes policymakers; academics and researchers from many disciplines; health and public health professionals and officials; health industry executives; lawyers; consultants; students; and members of the media. Authors should be mindful of this breadth and aim to write for readers who have an interest in health policy issues, but should not assume expertise among readers on any particular topic.

We welcome essays and commentaries, but submissions should have a strong basis in evidence and reflect a thorough understanding of the state of knowledge of the subjects explored as well as the policy issues and questions that surround those subjects.

Submission Requirements
Manuscripts should be submitted via Health Affairs' manuscript submission system.

Papers should be original submissions not previously published or being considered by other journals.

Additional details and style guidelines are available on Health Affairs' Web site under "Help for Authors".

Timing
There is no deadline for submissions; papers on these topics will be considered on an ongoing basis and considered for publication through 2017. However, it is expected that papers will deal with topics of interest in a timely way so that the arguments and data presented are relevant to current policy concerns.

Selection Process
Submissions will be competitively reviewed, and therefore we cannot guarantee publication of any particular paper. Health Affairs' editors will evaluate all submissions to make an initial determination on suitability for the journal. Those papers that advance through this phase will be subjected to peer review, which will consist of sharing papers with external experts. Comments and recommendations of peer reviewers will factor into the journal's decisions on whether or not to select papers for revision and, ultimately, publication.

Questions
If you have questions about the suitability of a particular paper, please e-mail us at POM_queries@projecthope.org.