Health Policy and Technology

Health Policy and Technology Guide for Authors

Published on behalf of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine .

Health Policy and Technology is a peer-reviewed cross-disciplinary journal which focuses on past, present and future health policy and the role of technology in clinical and non-clinical health environments. HPT publishes relevant, timely and accessible articles and commentaries to support policy-makers, health professionals, health technology providers, patient groups and academia interested in health policy and technology.

The journal is owned by the registered charity the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine (FPM) established in 1918 with the aim of 'education medical professionals'. We invite papers on a range of policy and technology themes which may include:

• Cross-national comparisons on health policy using evidence-based approaches
• Country studies on health policy to determine the outcomes of technology-driven initiatives
• Health technology, including drug discovery, diagnostics, medicines, devices, therapeutic delivery and eHealth systems
• Cross border eHealth including health tourism
• Health technology assessment (HTA) methods and tools for revaluating the effectiveness of clinical and non clinical health technologies
• eHealth systems
• Regulation and health economics

Authors for whom English is a second language may choose to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission or during the review process. Authors wishing to pursue a professional English-language editing service should make contact and arrange payment with the editing service of their choice. For more details regarding the recommended services, please refer to http://support.elsevier.com/

I. ETHICS IN PUBLISHING
For information on Ethics in Publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.

II. CONFLICT OF INTEREST
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, and grants or other funding. See also http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.

III. SUBMISSION DECLARATION
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

IV. RETAINED AUTHOR RIGHTS
As an author you (or your employer or institutions) retain certain rights; for details you are referred to: http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.

V. 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.

VI. MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION AND SPECIFICATIONS
To submit a manuscript to Health Policy and Technology, please go to: http://ees.elsevier.com/hlpt For assistance, authors may contact the editorial office.

If submissions are larger than 500 KB, they should be compressed using PKZIP or WINZIP.

Copyright: Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to transfer copyright (for more information on copyright see http://authors.elsevier.com). This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. A letter will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript. A form facilitating transfer of copyright will be provided.

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 these cases: contact Elsevier's Rights Department, Oxford UK: e-mail: permissions@elsevier.com. Requests may also be completed on-line via the Elsevier homepage (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions).

Each Submission should contain separate documents as follows:

1) COVER LETTER
The cover letter should include: 1) title of the manuscript; 2) name of the document file(s) containing the manuscript and the software (and version) used; 3) name and all contact information for the corresponding author and a statement as to whether the data, models, or methodology used in the research are proprietary; 4) names of all sponsors of the research and a statement of all direct or indirect financial relationships the authors have with the sponsors; and 5) if applicable, a statement that the publication of study results was not contingent on the sponsor's approval or censorship of the manuscript. 2) TITLE PAGE
The title page should contain the following: 1) title; 2) full names (first and surname) of all authors including academic degrees and affiliation(s); 3) name, mailing and email addresses, telephone and fax numbers of corresponding author (with whom all correspondence will take place unless other arrangements are made); 4) all sources of financial or other support for the manuscript (if no funding was received, this should be noted on the title page); 5) at least four key words for indexing purposes; and 6) a running title of not more than 45 characters including spaces.

3) MANUSCRIPTS
Manuscripts must be written in English, typed in either Microsoft Word (Version 5.0 or later) or WordPerfect (version 5.1 or later). Manuscripts should be double- spaced with 1-inch margins on all sides and size 10 font (Arial or Times New Roman fonts are preferred). Minimal formatting should be used, i.e., no justification, italics, bold, indenting, etc. There should be no hard returns at the end of lines. Double- spacing after each element is requested (e.g., headings, titles, paragraphs, legends).

Editorials: Editorials are generally invited by the Editorial Team. They are 1,500 words in length with no abstract or keywords.
Original research articles: Original research articles have a limit of 4,500 words and no more than 40 references.
Review articles: Review articles have a limit of 3,500 words with an unlimited number of references.

ABSTRACT
An abstract of 250 words or less is required, summarizing the work reported in the manuscript. Original research manuscripts should use a structured format for the abstract, i.e., Objectives, Methods, Results, Conclusions.

TEXT
The body of the manuscript should be divided into sections that facilitate reading and comprehension of the material. This should normally include sections with the major headings: Introduction, Methods, Results, Conclusions, Acknowledgments (if needed), and References. There should be no footnotes. Figures (inclusive of figure legends) and Tables must be submitted each as separate documents.

REFERENCES
The format of references should be that of the Vancouver guidelines. Include:
The names of all the authors when six or fewer, followed by their initials. Otherwise list only the first three and add et al
The title of the article or chapter
The journal name abbreviated as in Index Medicus, the year and volume, and the first and last pages
For a book, the names of any editors (as for authors), the city and name of the publisher, and the year and pages

Examples for an article in a journal (1) or book (2) or for a book (3) would be:
1. Jiang FN, Liu DJ, Neyndorff H, Chester M, Jiang S-Y, Luy JG. Photodynamic killing of human squamous cell carcinoma cells using a monoclonal antibody-photosensitizer conjugate. J Natl Cancer Inst 1991;83:1218-25.
2. Gullick WJ, Venter DJ. The c-erbB2 and its expression in human tumours. In Waxman J, Sikora K, editors. The molecular biology of cancer. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications; 1989: p.38-53.
3. Lumley JSP, Green CJ, Lear P, Angell-James JE, Essentials of Experimental Surgery. London: Butterworths; 1990.

DATA, MODELS, AND METHODOLOGYM
All authors must agree to make their data available at the Editor's request for examination and re-analysis by referees or other persons designated by the Editor. All models and methodologies must be presented in sufficient detail to be fully comprehensible to readers.

Figure Captions, Tables, Figures and Schemes:

Preparation of Electronic Illustrations
. o Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
o Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.
o Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol.
o Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
o Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
o Provide all illustrations as separate files and as hardcopy printouts on separate sheets.
o Provide captions to illustrations separately.
o Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website: http://authors.elsevier.com/artwork. You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

Formats. Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please "save as" or convert the images to one of the following formats (Note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below.):
EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as "graphics".
TIFF: Colour or greyscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (colour or greyscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
JPEG, DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications please supply "as is".

Please do not:
• Supply embedded graphics in your word processor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable colour figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge that these figures will appear in colour on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites).

Captions. Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Line Drawings. The lettering and symbols, as well as other details, should have proportionate dimensions, so as not to become illegible or unclear after possible reduction; in general, the figures should be designed for a reduction factor of two to three. The degree of reduction will be determined by the Publisher. Illustrations will not be enlarged. Consider the page format of the journal when designing the illustrations. Do not use any type of shading on computer-generated illustrations.

Photographs (halftones). Remove non-essential areas of a photograph. Do not mount photographs unless they form part of a composite figure. Where necessary, insert a scale bar in the illustration (not below it), as opposed to giving a magnification factor in the caption. Note that photocopies of photographs are not acceptable.

Revised Manuscripts: Authors who have been asked to revise their manuscript by the Editors should submit a file which clearly shows the changes that have been made via the 'track changes' function or text highlighting, and a file containing a clean copy of the manuscript.

Preparation of Supplementary Data: Elsevier accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, 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 the Author Gateway at http://authors.elsevier.com/artwork.

Special Subject Repositories: Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors who publish in Elsevier journals 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.

Sponsored Articles: Health Policy and Technology offers authors the option to sponsor non-subscriber access to individual articles. The access sponsorship contribution fee per article is $3,000. This contribution is necessary to offset publishing costs - from managing article submission and peer review, to typesetting, tagging and indexing of articles, hosting articles on dedicated servers, supporting sales and marketing costs to ensure global dissemination via ScienceDirect, and permanently preserving the published journal article. The sponsorship fee excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as colour charges which are additional.

Authors can specify that they would like to select this option after receiving notification that their article has been accepted for publication, but not before. This eliminates a potential conflict of interest by ensuring that the journal does not have a financial incentive to accept an article for publication.

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 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.

Please use this proof 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. 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