In transition - Editorial

Health Services Research, August, 2002 by Stephen M. Shortell

I am no longer the editor of (a Journal) and shall always try to do right and be good, so that God will not make me one (again)!

-- Paraphrase, Mark Twain

Actually, Mark Twain did not express my feelings as I complete my six years as editor of Health Services Research. But it was simply too good a statement to pass up.

For some reason, I have always liked transitions. Perhaps it is because they imply a sense of progress, while at the same time maintaining a sense of continuity. Part of the past is brought into and reflected in the future while at the same time being replaced by or transformed by the future. Thus, I choose to view completing my six years as the editor of HSR as a transition. A transition from being very actively involved in all affairs of the Journal to being much less actively involved. A transition from the enjoyment of working with an outstanding group of people (from senior editors and board members to our authors) to watching others experience that enjoyment. A transition from taking personal pride in what the HSR team has achieved to date to, in the future, experiencing that pride in a more vicarious fashion.

During the past six years, the Journal has achieved a number of milestones. These have included growth in the number of subscriptions, an almost doubling of the number of manuscripts submitted, significant expansion of the editorial board, the introduction of new features (e.g., the Public Policy Impact section and Research Translation Commentaries), the publication of ten special issues, electronic publishing of the Alice Hersh Memorial issue, increased media coverage, and, most recently, a significantly expanded number of pages. As evidence of the Journal's quality, eight HSR articles have received "Article of the Year" awards from several national associations over the past six years. Further evidence of the journal's standing is reflected in a recent national survey that ranked HSR second only to the New England Journal of Medicine in quality and third only to Health Affairs and Medical Care Research and Review in regard to perceived relevance (Williams et al, 2002).

None of this would have been possible without the support of many people. First, gratitude is again expressed to Gordon DeFriese, my predecessor who laid the foundation for the Journal over the previous thirteen years of his editorship. Without this foundation, we would not have been able to pursue the new opportunities that arose. By far the best decision that I made during my tenure was to appoint a senior editorial team of committed and talented individuals from nearly all the major disciplines within the field of health services research. These are Gloria Bazzoli, Carolyn Clancy, Hal Luft, Nicole Lurie, Catherine McLaughlin, and Al Siu. Not only were they superb in overseeing the manuscript review process in their own areas of expertise, but they also came together as a senior board of advisors in helping me chart new directions for the Journal. Many of the innovations introduced over the past six years grew out of monthly "senior editor" conference calls.

I am also grateful to Mary Pittman, Kate Buckley, Cheryl Knott, and staff at Health Research and Educational Trust who were consistently supportive of the journal's "risk-taking" activities. More than once it seems, I begged Mary for "forgiveness" for having exceeded our usual page limitations. HRET also generously supported our annual editorial board dinners that helped to promote a spirit of colleagueship and teamwork among the editorial board members at large. Appreciation is also due to Maureen Glass, Kathy Malone Prantner, and Joyce Sherman of the Health Administration Press for their outstanding editorial and business management of the journal during most of my tenure and, more recently, to Malcolm Crystal, Paige Larkin, and Susan Manning of Blackwell Publishers, Inc. A special note of appreciation and recognition is also due to the Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy for their support over the past six years, represented initially by Alice Hersh, Mike Stafford, and Wendy Valentine, a nd more recently by Wendy and David Helms. We are especially proud to honor Alice Hersh's many contributions to the field by publishing in her memory the best papers from each annual meeting of the Academy. We are excited by the plans that David Helm has for the Academy and stand ready to assist him in achieving those objectives.

I would be seriously remiss if I did not also thank the two people I have worked with most closely over the past six years--for five of those years, my editorial assistant Alice Schaller, without whose dedication and skills the journal would not have run as smoothly and, more recently, Mary Carol Randall who has picked up where Alice left off. I also want to acknowledge the many financial supporters of the Journal over the past six years, but in particular, the financial contributions made by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Agency for Health Research and Quality, and the Center for Health Management Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Without this support, the Journal would not have been able to make the contributions to the field that it has. Finally, I want to thank both the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, for their institutional support during my six year s as HSR editor.