JCHIMP: A proud 4 year old with the best yet to come

JCHIMP, the Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives, emerged from the Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine (APDIM) and specifically from its assembly for community hospital training programs. During the semi-annual APDIM meetings of 2009 and 2010, a new voluntary sub-organization, the Community Hospital Education and Research Network (CHERN), was organized to foster scholarly activity where it might be wanting in the non-university-based teaching hospital community. The internal medicine graduate medical education accreditation environment, at the time, was perceived to be putting increasing pressure on residents and staff in community hospitals to publish and/or participate in more scholarly activities. This had become increasingly difficult because of the decline or demise of many regional paper journals that had been vehicles for residents to publish their work (1, 2). During the same period, Internet-based journals were expanding. Open access publishing was efficient and economical for the readership. The same standards related to peer review and PubMed indexing could be applied.

In this context, JCHIMP was conceived in midyear 2010. The mission of the journal was to serve as a platform for the publication of scholarly work from the perspective of the community hospital constituency. Previously, this important group was without such a vehicle. We believe that JCHIMP was the first to strike out in this direction.

Under the tutelage of David Solomon, an expert editor in the field of open access publishing (3), we developed journal objectives – rapid turnaround, succinct style, ever expanding readership and professional participation, a robust group of peer reviewers, a broad-based editorial board and, ultimately, PubMed indexing. Dr. Solomon emphasized how the open access model adds to the impact of a journal. Importantly, he directed us in publisher selection which led to our relationship with Co-Action Publishing based in Stockholm, Sweden.

Four-year overview

The first issue of the journal was posted in 2011. In our first year, the journal published 31 manuscripts in four issues (Table 1). By the end of the year, 2,500 unique individuals accessed the site. We published editor's perspectives, original research, case reports, and advances in medical education. Over time, imaging columns for clinical, radiology, and ECGs were added. Although the journal clearly had a US community hospital core, manuscripts were accepted for publication from universities and non-US institutions if we thought the subject matter would be of interest to the journal readership. The year 2012 showed continued growth in all statistical parameters with 41 publications in our quarterly format and readership of greater than 7,000.

Table 1.

JCHIMP # of Manuscripts and Issues per Year

Year	No. of manuscripts	No. of issues per year
2011	31	4
2012	41	4
2013	30	3 due to hiatus
2014	60	5

Year 3 started out well but significant problems emerged midyear. Following good manuscript quality and quantity in our first two issues, the journal went into hiatus. As the editor, when I left MedStar Union Memorial in 2013 and joined the faculty at Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC), the legal and financial backing for JCHIMP was at a crossroads. Although the death of JCHIMP was predicted by some, this turned out to be premature as GBMC provided the rescue financially. This led to an editorial board reconstitution. After skipping volume 3, issue 3, we came back with a double issue 3–4 in November 2013 (4). Readership had reached 16,000 despite the interruption in service. The year ended with a definite ‘up’, and the crowning achievement was certification by the NIH of PubMed indexing that was retrospective for all published manuscripts since the origin of this species (2).

In 2014, with our new financial stream, increased journal longevity, community hospital awareness (based on discussions at national APDIM meetings), and a full year of PubMed indexing, the journal has had its best year yet. Publication frequency increased to five per year with over 60 manuscripts published (Table 1). Submissions to the journal that were published came from 28 institutions in 11 states and 2 other countries (Table 2). We are evolving into a bimonthly journal. This will allow for a reduction in the waiting time to see publications posted. I have personally been involved in cases that we published within 4 months after discharge from our hospital.

Table 2.

Institutional sources of manuscripts published in volume 4

Carilion, VA	St. Agnes, MD
Chester – Crozer, PA	St. Francis, NJ
Chester River, MD	St. Mary's, CA
De Moines, IA	St. Mary's, GA
Easton, PA	St. Vincent's, MA
Greater Baltimore, MD	Staten Island, NY
Jersey City, NJ	Unity, NY
Lehigh Valley, PA	University of Maryland School of Medicine, MD
McKeesport, PA	University of Nebraska Medical Center, NE
MedStar Franklin Square, MD	University of Tennessee, College of Medicine, Chattanooga, TN
MedStar Good Samaritan, MD	Winthrop, NY
MedStar Harbor Hospital, MD
MedStar Union Memorial, MD	Non-US institutions
Reading, PA	Nepal
San Juaquin, CA	United Kingdom

To further solidify our finances in 2014, we offered JCHIMP sponsorship restricted to educational institutions like teaching hospitals and ACP chapters. This idea was developed by Richard Alweis from Reading Health System, who, through his work as associate editor of JCHIMP and co-director of the Community Hospital Assembly at APDIM, has made great contributions to the journal's development. We think the journal can be used as a residency recruitment tool with its worldwide distribution. Our unique individuals this year almost doubled to 30,000 (Fig. 1) from 164 countries.

Fig. 1.

Cumulative unique visitors to JCHIMP site by year.

With our increasing manuscript volume, the demand for more involved peer reviewers has increased. Those who reviewed for JCHIMP in 2014 are listed in Table 3. To encourage faculty development in peer reviewing, I have conducted workshops this fall for multiple faculty and resident groups. This has generated 30 new reviewers for JCHIMP. With coincident pruning of the reviewers previously listed, our 200 or so current reviewer list is committed and well-trained.

Table 3.

JCHIMP peer reviewers 2014

Brian Aboff	Pradeep Dhakarwal	Sapna Kuehl	Ranjan Pathak
Carlos Acuna	Tracy Doering	Anil Kumar	Anne Pereira
Amesh Ashok Adalja	Zhijun Du	Alexandre Lacasse	Richard Pomerantz
Nnabuchi Akpeh	Ahmad Elashery	Ankush Lahoti	Celeste Quianzon
Chuck Albrecht	Jeremy Ellis	Brooke Leachman	Rachel Ramirez
Richard Alweis	Sherif Eltawansy	May Lee	Ashish Rana
Raja Ayash	Margaret Eng	Fritz Lubin	Zacharia Reagle
Hooman Bakhsi	Robert Ferguson	Phillip Mackowiak	Farah Salahuddin
Gerard Baltazar	Daniel Fischman	Srinivasa Madhavan	Sonia Samtani
Victoria Bengaulid	Paul Foster	Naba Mainali	Fardad Sarabchi
Vijaya Bhatt	Joseph Fuscaldo	Mohammad Malik	Carlton Sextion
Kenzie Bowen	Sunil Goyal	Jayaprakash Manda	Mansur Shomali
Yvonne Braver	Shanu Gupta	Henry Meilman	Waqas Shuaib
Wayne Campbell	Mohammadali Habibi	Zahra Meyghani	David Smith
Yuanning Cao	Rimoun Hakim	Marita Mike	Jeffrey Stroup
Lucien Cardinal	Farnaz Houshmand	Hmu Minn	Bishnu Subedi
Harjit Chahal	Duosha Hu	Dmitra Mitsani	Radhika Vij
Subhash Chandra	Rong Hu	Salman Muddassir	Yue Wang
Issam Cheikh	Reza Imani	Daryn Norwood	David Weisman
Malek Cheikh	Aditya Kalakonda	Eric Osgood	David Widlus
Chester Choi	Maryam Keshtkab Jahromi	Ali Ozhand	Ashley Wietsma
Dobbin Chow	Deborah Kim	Venkataraman Palabindala	Richard Williams
John Cmar	Victor Kolade	Phil Panzarella
Stefan David	Mahesh Krishnamurthy	Kinnari Parikh
Janaki Deepak	Claudia Kroker-Bode	Arvin Parvathaneni

2015 and beyond

There are many significant advances planned for JCHIMP in 2015 and beyond. A quarterly column featuring best practices in patient safety, edited by Paul Foster at GBMC, is one. A history of medicine interest group is developing a history supplement which will be published periodically. We reached our annual published manuscript goal of 60 in 2014 and plan to expand on that with our bimonthly publication schedule. Most importantly, we hope to continue to grow the awareness of JCHIMP in community teaching hospitals linked to APDIM and CHERN. We will be continuing to develop our peer reviewer group. Incentives to participate will not only include name recognition and publication (as in this article) but we are planning on CME credits for those performing peer reviews.

And finally, don't be concerned that the journal looks different in 2015. The website is undergoing a makeover (Addendum 1) as we write and will have many new bells and whistles. Hopefully, the transition will be smoother than the 2014 ERAS upgrade.

Also in this issue, are the most manuscripts published in a single issue, despite the compressed publication interval. There is a perspective piece by a sleep expert as a practical guide for general internists when reviewing sleep study reports (5). There are two important original research papers: a study on errata reported by high impact medical journals including comparisons to a similar study published by a high impact journal in September 2014 (6); and an important and provocative case series suggesting early discharge for post DKA patients may be safe and efficacious compared to a more slow and deliberate approach (7). A preliminary study suggests that community hospital internal medicine residents are not satisfied with current handoff methodology in the clinic setting (8). There are 10 case reports. There are two very interesting thyroid cases with atypical presentations – one demonstrates oscillating thyroid function documented over a 20-year period and the other, apathetic hyperthyroidism in the elderly (9, 10). There is a pair of abdominal pain cases caused by unusual vascular abnormalities (11, 12). There is a case of Hodgkin's lymphoma causing hepatic failure and a case of amyloidosis causing heart failure (13, 14). Sickle cell trait-induced papillary necrosis is reported – a very unusual complication for this typically mild problem (15). There is a report of neuroendocrine prostate cancer with normal PSA levels (16). There are two striking radiology images: cardiac tamponade as the presenting feature in acute aortic dissection and a massive spontaneous pneumothorax caused by Job's syndrome (17, 18). And finally, there is a letter to the editor regarding the first patient safety publication of our new series with comments from the series editor (19, 20).

Robert P. Ferguson, MD
Editor
Email: rferguson@gbmc.org

Addendum 1

Say good-bye to the old Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives. This is the final issue of JCHIMP to be published in our current layout. Later this year our publisher, Co-Action Publishing, will be introducing a new design for the journal that involves a very different user experience for exploring the journal's content and for diving into individual articles. As of Issue 1 in 2015, readers will land on the full text of an article. A navigation bar running along the left-hand side of the article will allow readers to jump to different sections of an article as well as to elements such as the Article Level Metrics page (that shows how many times an article has been viewed, shared in social media, etc.), Author Information, and Related Content. The editorial team has had an opportunity to view the new design and we are confident that you will be as excited as we are about the new look and feel.

Caroline Sutton, PhD

Co-Founder/Publisher

Co-Action Publishing