The Journal Continues to Evolve

Abstract

The Journal has been in a state of constructive evolution since it was founded by Franklin Rosenfeldt in 1991 as the Pacific Journal’’, before becoming Heart Lung and Circulation’’. After overcoming initial criticism and negativity, Frank persisted with his firm belief in the potential of the Journal, and this ethos was continued and the Journal’s horizons expanded by Richmond Jeremy. As detailed in an Editorial in 2012 [1], the Journal has a promising future and has more potential into which to tap. There are now submissions coming in from all over the world, not just from the Asia Pacific region, and the number of submissions has trebled between 2010 and 2013. The acceptance rate for manuscripts is currently 37%. Editorial time has been substantially reduced despite the increased workload, and the members of the Editorial team are to be congratulated for that. The Journal continues to evolve to cope with demands and expectations. From this issue, there will be a new format, which will be more reader friendly. Once accepted articles have been typeset, they are available online. Print times are not excessively long compared with some other journals, but are to be reduced for priority articles which will include Reviews, Original Articles, Editorials, Guidelines and other key submissions. The reduction in print time for these key articles will be achieved by a combination of increased pages appearing in print for each issue, and publishing of Clinical Spotlights and many articles in the Brief Communication and Images categories in online versions only, with epagination linked to specific issues. Most abstracts from Cardiology and Cardiothoracic Surgical meetings will also be published online only, with the exception of those meetings where Societies wish to fund a print supplement to enable abstracts to be printed in time for the meeting. The Journal will be publishing online the abstracts from the 2014 World Congress of Cardiology meeting to be held in Melbourne. Original Articles and Reviews will continue to have three broad themes – Clinical Cardiology, Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery, and Basic Cardiovascular Science. Targeted focus areas will include Indigenous cardiovascular health, innovative new techniques, technologies and treatments (including