As we reach the end of another year, I know we all look forward to holiday celebrations with family and friends and making plans for the new year to come. This time of year also gives us an opportunity to look back and assess what we have accomplished and what progress we are making toward long-term goals, both professional and personal. In that spirit, let us take a look back at 2022 and see what we have achieved at JAANP.
As readers know, the aim of JAANP is to be the leading research-based scientific journal for nurse practitioners and their colleagues. We strive to provide cutting edge information on nurse practitioner practice, education, and research. We also feature articles on NP advocacy and leadership. In doing so, we take care to address the full continuum of settings in which NPs work.
Our journal solicits very few manuscripts, and we welcome papers from anyone. In addition to nurse practitioners, in the past several years we have published papers from physician assistants, physicians, chiropractors, therapists, public health specialists, and many others. We are excited about the growing number of multidisciplinary papers being submitted. We also publish selected papers jointly with the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Associates when research or clinical initiatives have implications for both of our roles.
We receive around 300 submissions per year, and only a fraction of these can be published. We welcome papers from researchers, faculty, practicing clinicians, and NP students. All are considered and decisions are made based on the quality of the manuscript. Even in the many cases in which the answer has to be "no," we strive to say it in a way that is both helpful and caring.
At the end of each year, I dive in to gather some summary statistics on the manuscripts that have been successfully shepherded by their authors through submission, screening, peer review, revision(s), and resubmission and achieved the goal of being published in the journal. I categorize these to see what we are covering well and to identify topics to target for emphasis in the future. If a paper addresses two categories, it is counted toward both. An example is an article on teaching telehealth skills to NP students, which addresses both NP education and telehealth. With that in mind, this year the journal published 61 articles on topics related to NP education, workforce, and roles. We published 88 articles on a wide array of clinical topics, and we published 50 articles on special populations.
Looking further into these articles, there have been some clear trends in topical areas. During 2022, NP education continued to be a hot topic. We published over 30 papers on NP educational innovations and curricular issues. It should be no surprise that COVID-19 was still affecting both clinical practice and education, and somehow authors found the time to keep these papers coming. In the first three months of the year, nine papers addressed the impact of the pandemic in one form or another. As the year went on, that number began to fall, and we had a total of 14 COVID-related papers in total.
Related to the pandemic, telehealth is a clearly growing topic of interest in papers submitted for consideration. We published 11 papers with telehealth as a primary topic. Information technology in general is of growing interest, and I was pleased to see that workplace practices, including billing, represented 12 papers published this year. I hope that this trend continues and that NPs and other clinicians will further study ways, such as electronic record documentation, to show the impact of NPs in the workforce. The NP workforce is a topic unto itself because 14 authors focused on issues such as NP staffing and the use of NPs in a variety of care settings.
Now I would like to mention a few areas that we would like to see more of in the journal. This may be of interest to anyone considering which topic to choose for an upcoming manuscript. First, I know that the members of our editorial board share my goal of seeking out and developing writers from diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise. We also recognize that one of our functions is to help younger or less experienced writers gain confidence and get support in polishing their papers. We will continue to build on our efforts in that area during 2023, so please know that you are supported.
Some specific topics we would like to receive in the future include:
Clinical areas: oncology and hematology, reproductive system, otolaryngology, orthopedics and rheumatology, and dermatology.
Populations: International topics, topics that focus on cultural and ethnic diversity, gender and sexuality related topics, papers that address aspects of disability, rural and underserved populations, and veteran/military health care.
Role: Establishing, developing, and distinguishing the NP identity.
Additionally, JAANP initiated an editorial mentorship program this year to develop NPs interested in serving on this or other scholarly publications in the future. We look forward to mentoring more early career editors in the coming year. In closing, the journal supports the core values of AANP in promoting integrity, excellence, professionalism, leadership, and service. We do this by expanding the scientific knowledge of nurse practitioners. If you would like to discuss your idea for a paper or would like guidance about a possible publication, please email me at mailto:[email protected].