The Journal of Athletic Training is pleased to announce a forthcoming thematic issue focused on health information technology (HIT) and health care economics (HCE) in sports medicine. The journal welcomes original research and clinical practice reports that will advance knowledge in the areas of HIT and HCE and impact clinical practice, patient care and outcomes.
The Athletic Training Research Agenda identified HIT and HCE as areas of need for the athletic training profession. However, athletic training–related research in HIT and HCE remains extremely limited, and collecting data at the point of care is fundamental to this work. As a result, the aspirational aim of this thematic issue is to promote and encourage research using point-of-care data from and for the athletic training profession and sports medicine community. To that end, we will seek to include many facets, including but not limited to the use of HIT (eg, electronic medical/health records, mobile devices) to collect point-of-care data (eg, health care outcomes); the collection, analysis and use of point-of-care data to improve patient care and advance professional initiatives; methodical approaches to health care or athletic training services research (eg, return on investment, cost effectiveness, revenue generation) and contributions that highlight the importance of the clinician-researcher collaboration in support of HIT and HCE research.
In addition to traditional original research submissions, we highly encourage clinicians who have collected data as part of routine practice and used those data to improve clinical practice (eg, patient outcomes, implementation of preventive or patient-care interventions, improving pay, adding staff) to submit clinical practice reports describing their experience. Clinicians who have ideas for this special issue but are unfamiliar with the manuscript drafting, submission, and review process can contact one of the guest editors for guidance and assistance.
Additional details for this special issue, including author instructions for clinical practice reports, will be released in early August.
Manuscripts are due Oct. 15, and will undergo the normal peer-review process, which will be overseen by guest editors Kenny Lam, Janet Simon, and Marc Norcross. For questions regarding formatting and processes related to formatting and submission, contact jat@slu.edu. We look forward to your submission.
