Official Journal of the European Federation of Medical Informatics (EFMI) Former title: International Journal of Bio-Medical Computing
Guide for Authors
All submissions should be made through Elsevier's Editorial System (EES) via http://ees.elsevier.com/ijmi). Authors should
carefully select the editor that will manage their submission: • Authors invited to submit a paper for a special/topical issue
of IJMI should select the designated editor for that issue •Review papers and book reviews should be send to the editor for
reviews •Papers on nursing informatics should be send to the editor for nursing informatics •All other submissions
should go to the editor in charge for the region where the corresponding authors resides (either the Americas – including Canada and
the Latin-American countries ?, or the rest of the world)
General Considerations
IJMI has adopted the guidelines of the
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Below, some of the important issues are highlighted. Visit http://www.icmje.orgfor more details.
Authorship
To qualify as an author, one should have made substantial contributions to
all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2)
drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.
Note that all authors should qualify for authorship and all that qualify should be authors.
Acknowledgements
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship as defined above should be listed in an acknowledgements section. Examples
of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who
provided only general support. Authors should disclose whether they had any writing assistance and identify the entity that paid for
this assistance. Financial support like grants should also be mentioned in the acknowledgements section.
Conflict of interest
At the end of the text, under the heading "Conflict of interest statement" all authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships
with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest
include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations. Also relations
other than of financial and personal nature can be a potential conflict of interest, for example in an evaluation study where the evaluators
are also the developers of the system tested. Such potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed as well.
Role of the
funding source
All sources of funding should be declared in an acknowledgement at the end of the text. Authors should declare
the role of study sponsors, if any, in the study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the
manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. If the study sponsors had no such involvement, the authors
should state so.
Randomised controlled trials
All randomised controlled trials submitted for publication in
the Journal should include a completed Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) flow chart. Please refer to the CONSORT statement
website at http://www.consort-statement.org for more information. The Journal has adopted the proposal from the International
Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which requires, as a condition of consideration for publication of clinical trials, the
registration in a public trials registry. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration
number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. For this purpose, a clinical trial is defined as any research project
that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical
intervention and a health outcome. The use of an information system is considered to be a medical intervention even when it mediates
its effects on patient care through a physician or nurse.
Ethics
Work on human beings that is submitted to
the Journal should comply with the principles laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki, recommendations guiding physicians in biomedical
research involving human subjects. (see http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm). The manuscript should contain a statement that
the work has been approved by the appropriate ethical committees related to the institution(s) in which it was performed and that subjects
gave informed consent to the work. Also, studies that involve non-patient humans, like observations of physicians? and nurses? behaviour
with and without IT, should safeguard the well-being of the subjects studied and hence being submitted for approval by an ethics committee
or institutional review board.
Studies involving experiments with animals must state that their care was in accordance with institutional
guidelines. Patients' and volunteers' names, initials, and hospital numbers should not be used.
Structure of manuscripts
The following types of contributions will be published: (i) Papers reporting original work; (ii) Interpretative reviews; (iii) Technical
notes; (iv) Letters to the Editor
All manuscripts, except letters to the editor, should have the following structure: •
Title page, including keywords • Structured abstract • Body of the manuscript • Authors? contributions
• Acknowledgements • Statement on conflicts of interest • Summary table • References • Appendices
(if applicable)
Manuscripts not conforming to this structure may be returned to author without prejudice but without review.
Title page
The first page should include the title of the manuscript, the authors of the manuscript with their affiliation,
the name and full address and contact details (phone and email) of the corresponding author, and a list of upto keywords. In the author(s)
interest these keywords should be from the collection used in MeSH published by the US National Library of Medicine (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html).
Considerable care should be used in selecting keywords because they will be used for subject indexing in this Journal and in other databases.
Structured abstract
The page following the front page should contain a structured abstract that accurately and concisely
describes the purpose, the methods, the results and conclusions of the study in the paper. The authors may choose also to include a statement
on the limitations of the study.
Body of the manuscript
The paper proper will begin on the third page of the typescript.
An organization of materials into an introduction, methods, results and discussion – also known as IMRAD – is the preferred format.
Summary table
The authors shall provide a table with in 2-4 bullets statements on ?what was already known on the topic?
and also in 2-4 bullets statements on ?what this study added to our knowledge?. Not that the second part of the table should not list
the results of the study as such. It should address what this study has proven and what insights have been gained.
References
Each bibliographic reference should be identified in the text by a number in square brackets (e.g. [3]) in order of appearance and be
listed in numerical order at the end of the typescript. The referencing style as used by the NLM are preferred (see http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html
for examples) Abbreviations for journals are those used in MeSH published by the US National Library of Medicine.
Although not encouraged,
reference to dissertation or so-called technical reports is permissible. In such cases, sufficient information must be given in the citation
for the reader to be able to reach the original report. References to electronic documents that can be found on the internet should be
accompanied by their URL, and the date of the last visit.
Preparation of Supplementary Data
Elsevier now accepts electronic
supplementary material (e-components) to support and enhance the description of your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the
author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets,
sound clips, forms, questionnaires and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of
your article in Elsevier web products, including ScienceDirect at http://www.sciencedirect.com. Since your material will
be made available without any further processing, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors
should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file.
For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
Format of submissions • Manuscripts must be word-processed (preferably in Microsoft Word format), written in English
and double spaced with about 3 cm margins all around. All pages should be numbered. • Queries about other submission formats should
be directed to authorsupport@elsevier.com. • Measurements and units should be expressed with their exact abbreviations
in SI. • Abbreviations may be used to replace often occurring phrases, but only when the abbreviation as such is used in communications
in the domain. Abbreviations should be introduced in parentheses when the full phrase is used for the first time in the body of the manuscript.
For example: ?The personal health record (PHR) is considered to remedy the shortcomings of existing EHRs. ?, assuming EHR has been defined
before. Henceforth, the abbreviation should be used, except in section headings and subheadings where full text is preferred. Abbreviation
should not contain periods or intervening space between letters. Universally known abbreviations (USA for United States of America) need
not be defined. Avoid using abbreviations in the abstract of the manuscript. • All figures and tables, including charts, graphs,
photographs, computer printouts and the like must be included in the manuscript at their appropriate place as well as separately uploaded
on the EES, each as a separate file. • Tables are consecutively numbered with roman numerals, figures with arabic numerals. • Each figure and table should be accompanied by a legend that provides sufficient details to understand the figure or table.
Any abbreviations in the figure or table should be explained in the legend. All legends of the tables and figures should also be collected
in numerical order in a separate document that is to be uploaded on the EES.
Figures submitted must be of sufficient quality for
direct reproduction. • Computer printouts must be completely legible. There are charges for colour illustrations in print. However
colour figures will automatically be available online at no extra charge, even if the print version is monochrome. • The Artwork
Quality Control Tool is now available to EES users. To help authors submit high-quality artwork early in the process, this tool checks
the submitted artwork and other file types against the artwork requirements outlined in the Artwork Instructions to Authors on http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Copyright
Submission of a paper to International Journal of Medical
Informatics is understood to imply that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and that the author(s) permission to publish
his/her (their) article(s) in this Journal implies the exclusive authorization of the publishers to deal with all issues concerning the
copyright therein.
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a ?Journal Publishing Agreement?? (for more information
on this and copyright see http://www.elsevier.com/authors). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible
dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together
with a `Journal Publishing Agreement? form.
If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written
permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in such
cases : contact Elsevier's Rights Department, Philadelphia, PA, USA: Tel. (+1) 215 238 7869; Fax (+1) 215 238 2239; e-mail healthpermissions@elsevier.com
. Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier homepage (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions).
Funding
body agreements and policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear
in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant
awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies
Proofs
One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper
proofs will be sent by post). Elsevier now sends PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version
7 or later, available free from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Instructions on how to annotate PDF
files will accompany the proofs. The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return
to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections
and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail,
or by post.
This proof is only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant
changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do
everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections
are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be
guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response
is received.
Offprints
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail
or, alternatively, 25 free paper offprints. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet
with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Additional paper offprints can be ordered by
the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.
Miscellaneous • The International
Journal of Medical Informatics has no page charges. • Publishing houses interested in having their books reviewed should contact
our editor for reviews Patrice Degoulet (patrice.degoulet@egp.aphp.fr). • Authors in Japan please note:
Upon request, Elsevier Japan will provide authors with a list of people who can check and improve the English of their paper (before
submission). Please contact our Tokyo office: Elsevier Japan, 4F Higashi-Azabu, 1-Chome Bldg, 1-9-15 Higashi-Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo
106-0044, Japan; Tel.: (+81) (3) 5561 5037; Fax : (+81) (3) 5561 5047; Email: jp.info@elsevier.com.
