Mission Statement

Healthcare Quarterly recognizes, nurtures and champions excellence in the Canadian healthcare system. Its objective is to document and disseminate evidence-informed practices in health service delivery and policy development. Excellence is achieved through constant innovation, motivated people and inspired leadership at all levels of the organization. Healthcare Quarterly helps Canadian health system leaders anticipate and respond to changing environments, demands and mandates.

Characteristically, the journal is a dependable source of practice innovations that are:

• Practical. Offering information and advice that is useful in day-to-day operations.

• Cutting-edge. Exploring important new strategies that help set management agendas in the Canadian health services sector.

• Eclectic. Offering materials for a wide readership within the healthcare community.

• Representative. Reflecting the dynamics inherent in an evolving healthcare system.

• Bridging. Exploring experiences from other sectors.

• International. Reporting experiences from around the world.

• Interactive. Allowing direct reader feedback.

• Polemic. Providing a good venue for debate.

• Current. Offering data that is new.

Readership

Healthcare Quarterly’s target audience are leaders and policy makers in governments, regions, networks, hospitals and facilities across Canada and internationally. The journal recognizes that participants in the healthcare system also include educators, consultants and suppliers. Our first responsibility is to the people who read Healthcare Quarterly. Everything we publish must provide utility, substance, value and quality.

Submission Process

Authors should provide a manuscript that is written in an interesting, non-academic style, free of professional jargon. Manuscripts must evidence-informed and written for healthcare leaders by experts whose authority comes from careful analysis and study or from a profound personal experience. Preferably, ideas have been tested in the real world and can be readily applied by readers in other jurisdictions. Manuscripts should include discussion of the author’s lessons learned as recommendations for implementation of the intervention described. 

Prior to article submission, the editors require a 100 – 150-word synopsis of content, outlining the key message, its implications and supporting evidence.  The synopsis should be emailed to: Dianne Foster Kent, Editorial Director.  The Editorial Team will review each synopsis and provide authors with feedback.  When synopses are deemed appropriate for the journal, authors will be invited to submit a full manuscript. 

Manuscript Preparation

Manuscripts submitted to Healthcare Quarterly must:

• Be no more than 3,000 words

• Include a title, 100- to 150- word abstract and key words

• Include a list of authors in correct order and providing academic degrees, job title, organization and a sentence of biography.

• Have a clearly identified corresponding author with current contact information.

• Not exceed any combination of three figures/tables or other graphics.  (Please see submission guidelines below.)

• Include references/citations prepared in the Longwoods house-style as described below.

• Submission of an article implies that it has not been previously published, is not being considered for publication elsewhere, and that the contents are original.

Cover Letter and Supporting Materials 

Healthcare Quarterly follows the recommendations of the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) regarding the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. Thus, the editors require that each manuscript submission must be accompanied a cover letter that includes the following:

• A statement of financial or other relationships that might lead to a conflict, or perceived conflict, of interest, if that information is not included in the manuscript itself. Authors are also required to complete and include the Author Disclosure form. (See Disclosure of Financial and Non-Financial Relationships and Activities, and Conflicts of Interest).

• Confirmation that all authors listed meet the three authorship criteria of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors as outlined below. Individuals who contributed to the paper but are not authors should be included in an Acknowledgement section. (See Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors.)

• A statement regarding the use of AI technologies in the development of the manuscript (See Artificial Intelligence (AI)–Assisted Technology.)

• A statement regarding any submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as publication of the same or very similar work. Any such work should be referred to specifically and referenced in the new submission. Copies of previously published materials should be included with the submitted paper, to help the editor decide how to handle the matter. (See Overlapping Publications.)

Review Process

All manuscripts submitted to Healthcare Quarterly are reviewed by the editorial team; however, it is not a peer-reviewed journal.  

Manuscripts are evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Value to readers/Contribution to the literature

• Originality/Relevance to audience

• Clear demonstration of the use of evidence

• Analysis of outcomes/Evidence of change

• Transferability/Application in other jurisdictions

• Clear solutions/Next Steps

• Clarity and quality of writing

Editors use their best judgement and discretion in determining the appropriateness of a manuscript for publication.

Copyright Transfer

Authors agree that Longwoods Publishing Corp. holds the copyright on all work published in Healthcare Quarterly. Authors are free to use their article for their own use, such as in books they are writing or in their own organization’s newsletters and reports. Material cannot be reproduced (such as photocopying) in the format it appears in Healthcare Quarterly without the consent of Healthcare Quarterly. Consent will not be unreasonably withheld. We require this credit: Reprinted from Healthcare Quarterly, Longwoods Publishing Corp.

Pre-Releases

When appropriate, the editors of Healthcare Quarterly will deem a submission time-sensitive.  Where possible, the accepted manuscript will be published ahead of the regular journal issue as a Pre-Release. A Pre-Release will copy edited and typeset but is not considered to be the final version. Any revisions will be reflected in the online version as of the date the article and full issue are officially released

Guidelines for Style

Manuscript submissions will be copy-edited for grammar, punctuation and consistency of spelling and style; in some cases they will be edited for length. All Longwoods publications use Canadian spelling and follow the Oxford Canadian Dictionary (first choice listed). Note, however, that "healthcare" is one word as both an adjective and a noun.

General Points of Style

• use double quotation marks, with single quotation marks within the double as necessary
• commas and periods always within the quotation marks
• series or serial comma not used to separate final elements in lists (e.g., CEOS, directors, managers and supervisors)
• articles and prepositions within titles and headings lowercased
• that/which distinction made for restrictive/nonrestrictive clauses
• Dates:
  • March 2003 (no comma)
  • March 12, 2003
  • The 1990s (no apostrophe)
• Numbers:
  • numbers below 10 spelled out; 10 and above as numerals
  • percentages always expressed as numerals, with percentage sign
    (e.g., 2%, 37%
  • dollar amounts - $10 million; $2 billion
• en dash used to set off phrases within sentences; space either side
• ellipses set tight; space either side for three ellipses within sentence ( ... )

References - Updated for DOI

The use of footnotes and endnotes is strongly discouraged. Instead, short explanatory remarks should be placed parenthetically in the text.

Longwoods follows a modified APA (American Psychological Association) style for referencing source material. In-text references should be placed in parentheses and consist of last name of the author(s) and the year of publication of the work to which reference has been made. No punctuation separates the two items.

Longwoods has adopted the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system (see: https://www.doi.org/ for more information). Please be sure to include DOI numbers in your citations where ever possible. See examples below in the In-text Referencing section. If accepted and published, your paper will also be identified by a unique DOI generated by Longwoods.

In-text References

One Author:

The theory was first propounded in 1970 (Goodenough 1971).

Alternatively, author surnames may be integrated into the text, followed immediately by the year of publication in parentheses:

Goodenough (1971) was the first to propound the theory.

Two Authors:

EI has been proven to positively affect an organization’s success (Cooper and Sawaf 1997).

Multiple Authors/Citations:

Any health organization could potentially benefit from this type of approach (Madden et al. 1995).

Madden et al. (1995) propose the following solutions …
This trend is reflected in recent surveys of healthcare organizations (Gaudine 2000; Pimentel 2000; Canadian Physiotherapy Association 2000; Parent et al. 2001)

In-text citations requiring page references to quoted material should be styled as follows:

(Goodenough et al. 1979: 22-23; Simcoe 1980: 734-35.)

Reference List

Ensure that all sources cited in the text are included in a "Reference" list at the end of the article. The accompanying list should be in alphabetical order and include full publication details. For multiple entries by the same author, arrange citations in chronological order, earliest year first. In the examples shown here, the following rules are observed:

• in citations with multiple authors, invert the first-name
• no parentheses for year of publication
• article titles in title case
• volume number, issue number, page references styled as follows (plain type - no italics): 15(3): 319-25 
• In accordance with the most recent APA guidelines, location of publishers is not required.

Sample References

Anis, A.H., D. Guh and X. Wang. 2001. A Dog’s Breakfast: Prescription Drug Coverage Varies Widely across Canada. Medical Care 39(4): 315-26.

Evans, R. 2013. It Doesn't Have to Be This Way. Healthcare Policy 8(4): 10-18. doi:10.12927/hcpol.2013.23400.

Boyatzis, R., D. Goleman and K. Rhee. 2000. Clustering Competence in Emotional Intelligence: Insights from the Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI). In R. Bar-On and J.D.A. Parker, eds., The Handbook of Emotional Intelligence. Jossey Bass.

Drinka, T.J.K. and P.G. Clark. 2000. Healthcare Teamwork: Interdisciplinary Practice and Teaching. Auburn House.

Shortell, S.M., J. Zimmerman, D.M. Rousseau, R.R. Gillies, Wagner, E.A. Draper, W.A. Knaus and J. Duffy. 1994. The Performance of Intensive Care Units: Does Good Management Make a Difference? Medical Care 32(5): 508-25.

Birch, S., G. Kephart, G.T. Murphy, L. O'Brien-Pallas. R. Alder R and A. MacKenzie. 2009. Health Human Resources Planning and the Production of Health: Development of an Extended Analytical Framework for Needs-Based Health Human Resources Planning. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. Nov;15(6 Suppl):S56-61. doi: 10.1097/PHH.0b013e3181b1ec0e.

Citations of all material accessed on-line should be as complete as possible and include all the information that would normally be cited for a print source. In addition, the date of access/retrieval should be included.

Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH). 2018, January. Environmental Scan: Biosimilars — Regulatory, Health Technology Assessment, Reimbursement Trends, and Market Outlook. Retrieved August 14, 2019. <https://cadth.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/ES0317_biosimilars.pdf>.

Tables and Figures

When preparing tables/figures authors are advised to refer to printed copies or PDFs of Healthcare Quarterly to get a sense of general size and style points.

Tables and figures should follow the material they illustrate.

All illustrations consisting of line art (pie charts, bar graphs, etc.) should be labeled as "Figures" and numbered consecutively within the article (Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.). Include an appropriate title, legend and sourceline, where required, for each Figure. Similarly, all Tables should be numbers consecutively within the article (Table 1, Table 2, etc.). 

Tables

Number tables consecutively and supply a brief title for each. Include explanatory footnotes for all nonstandard abbreviations. Cite each table in the text in consecutive order. They should be self-explanatory and not duplicate the text. If you use data from another published or unpublished source, obtain permission and acknowledge fully. 

Tables should be as small as possible. Turning a journal sideways to read a table is an inconvenience to readers. Please avoid the usage of landscape orientated tables. Include all tables in one file, separate from the article text. Bear in mind the size of the column width is 6.875 inches as a limiting factor when compiling a table.

Figures

Figures or Graphs in the manuscript must be provided as a separate original document for accurate reproduction in all Longwoods publications. If the figure being used was not created by you, and therefore obtaining on original is not possible, please provide any text from the figure as a separate Word Document.

Appendices

For submission, appendices should be supplied as separate text files; and clearly labelled as Appendices. Appendices will be subjected to editorial review alongside the article. Decisions about whether to include supplemental material files will be made by the journal editors during the manuscript review process.

Once accepted, appendix files should be provided in pdf. format and will be uploaded online as supplied. They will not be checked for accuracy, copyedited, typeset or proofread. The responsibility for scientific accuracy, readability and file functionality remains with the authors. A disclaimer will be displayed to this effect with any appendix published. Longwoods Publishing does not provide technical support for the creation of supplemental material.

Editor

Address all correspondence to the Editorial Director:

Dianne Foster Kent
Editorial Director
Longwoods Publishing Corporation
260 Adelaide Street East, No. 8
Toronto, ON M5A 1N1
Telephone: 416 864-9667
Fax: 416 368-4443
Email: dkent@longwoods.com