eGEMs’ Early Adventures in Open Access Publishing

INTRODUCTION: In January 2013 AcademyHealth officially launched eGEMs (Generating Evidence and Methods to improve patient outcomes) to rapidly disseminate peer-reviewed approaches using electronic health data (EHD) to advance research and quality improvement (QI), with the overall goal of improving patient and community outcomes. Inspired by the publication of eGEMs 50(th) paper, Dr. Erin Holve, eGEMs editor-in-chief reviews the EDM Forum’s early experiences with open access publishing. EGEMS TO DATE: As of the end of September 2014 eGEMs has published 59 manuscripts and received nearly 150 submissions. These early findings demonstrate eGEMs is filling a need for dissemination outlets that bridge the gap between the health research and practice communities. Published papers are distributed across the EDM Forum’s four thematic domains: governance (n=5), informatics (n=14), methods (n=13) and learning health systems (n=27). While system design issues are a consistent theme, papers addressing priority health topics such as diabetes, asthma, and obesity are frequently submitted. Authors include more than two hundred experts in the field representing nearly all of the EDM Forum’s core stakeholder groups: research/QI, nonprofit/policy, healthcare delivery, government, industry, and patients/consumers. WHAT’S NEXT: With the help of our diverse community, eGEMs will continue to expand its depth and reach. Forthcoming special issues on community-level transformation using health IT, and ways to improve user-experience and system design will add to the journal’s robust portfolio of work identifying and addressing shared challenges using EHD. The EDM Forum, working closely with our partners at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, will work diligently to ensure eGEMs is accelerating the pace at which the community translates and disseminates key lessons, with the ultimate goal of helping transform knowledge into actions that can improve health and health care.