The Rewards of Volunteering

Abstract

Whichever perspective you take on the “if a tree falls in the forest” question, it is certainly true that the easier a journal is to search and access, the more its content is likely to influence thinking, research and policy. With this in mind, I am happy to announce that the National Library of Medicine (NLM) recently decided to index Healthcare Policy/Politiques de Sante in its Medline database. While the journal has been indexed in the Library's PubMed Central – and CINAHL, CSA (Cambridge), Ulrich's, Embase, IndexCopernicus and Scopus, and is a partner of HINARI – for some time, this decision marks a step change in the ability to search for and access key information from the journal's articles. Citations from indexed articles, the Medical Subject Heading terms used by NLM staff to index the articles and the articles' abstracts will now be searchable in Medline. This will be true of past papers as well as future ones, as the NLM retrospectively adds previous issues of the journal to its database. Our ability to achieve this milestone is due, in large part, to the work of our strong team of volunteer editors and peer reviewers. Central to the process are the journal's editors (see page 6) who guide the path of papers through all stages of the review and publication process. I would particularly like to thank Dr. Pat Martens, who has recently concluded her role as the journal's Data Matters editor. Throughout her tenure, her insightful and helpful contributions have been much appreciated by authors, reviewers and colleagues on the editorial panel alike. Thanks are also due to our peer reviewers. We depend on their breadth of expertise, thoughtful comments and guidance, and generous contributions to improving research and policy debate to ensure the quality and relevance of the papers that we publish in the journal's pages. This year's issues had a broader range of reviewers than ever before, including experts from around the world (see page 100). I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all for their essential assistance. Would you consider becoming a reviewer to help advance scholarship and evidence-informed discussion in health policy? If so, please register for our database of potential reviewers at http://www.longwoods.com/reviewer-registration/healthcare-policy. This tool helps our editors to match papers that we send out for comment with the expertise and interests of reviewers.