Information For Authors | Telehealth and Medicine Today

General Information for Authors

Editorial emphasis
Publishing model
Article types
Authorship and related information
Criterion for publication
Article Processing Charge
Waiver policy
Refund policy
Competing interests
Open access
Embargo policy

Telehealth and Medicine Today (TMT) is an open access, peer reviewed journal delivering information on the cost efficiency of value based care to inform and influence healthcare leaders and innovators around the globe. We assist an evolving health sector in launching and scaling delivery services to achieve sustainable outcomes within clinically integrated healthcare systems. The journal offers rapid review of research articles and commentaries related to innovations in patient-centered care. Emphasis focuses on advances in program implementation, outcomes, process improvement, advanced econometrics, and clinical research applications across the care continuum in a new era of healthcare.

The audience for Telehealth and Medicine Today includes over 24,000 individuals at hospitals and medical research centers, payer organizations, researchers, innovators, medical directors, IT/IS, healthcare providers, and academicians. In addition, biopharm and device companies are represented. Anyone with an interest in digital health and telemedicine can freely access Telehealth and Medicine Today for information on the implementation and advances on the horizon in the specialty.

EDITORIAL EMPHASIS

Manuscripts of interest will present local and global innovations that foster ecosystem efficiencies in telehealth and telemedicine utilizing evidence-based outcomes which include:

TMT provides a fair and unbiased forum where authors are encouraged to share both positive and negative experiences in the telehealth sector. This can help efforts, planned and underway, in the sector. We are committed to providing a fair and objective forum for all perspectives and experiences.

Publishing model

TMT revenue model consists primarily of commercial support and related initiatives conducted under the auspices of the journal, such as conferences, summits, and roundtables.

TMT publishes articles on a continuous basis to keep up with an ever evolving and dynamic marketplace. Continuous publishing means all TMT articles will be available faster online as they become ready to publish, without linking them to a specific issue. This way, we can ensure an accurate reflection of developments, trends and open source information relevant to the trusted exchange of peer reviewed knowledge, while providing a forum for developing shared work and consensus. As an open access journal, all research articles are freely available immediately on publication.

Once TMT has attained index status, each online article will have a unique identifier. This identifier (elocator) should be used when citing a TMT article. The citation should appear on all articles, in PubMed, and other indexes in the future, as we work to obtain index status for the journal. Once indexed, citations will be retroactively indexed.

ARTICLE TYPES

Please note, there are no word counts for submissions. TMT wants you to contribute and share in as many words as you need.

Original research: These are detailed studies reporting original research in which telehealth technology has played a significant role. They include hypothesis, background study, methods, results, interpretation of findings, and a discussion of possible implications. Randomized, controlled trials, case series, cohort studies, pilot studies, and meta-analysis are also examples of original research that TMT accepts for this category. A major emphasis of our editorial mission is the financial impact of telehealth to healthcare systems and patient care. We encourage you to explore and include, where possible, financial and quality of care implications.

Proof of Concept: Demonstrate feasibility to verify real world application, potential value and learnings. Examples such as interoperability, system integration and deployment may be topics. Use cases may also be submitted under this category. Where possible, TMT asks the author(s) to include examination of the financial impact the product or service may have on the marketplace.

Review article: Review articles give an overview of existing literature, with emphasis on telehealth technology, often identifying specific problems or issues and analyzing information from available published work on the topic with a balanced perspective. Review articles can be of three types: literature reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses. The goal of this article type is to identify specific problems or issues and analyze information from available published work on the topic with a balanced perspective. Please note: meta-analyses can be submitted as original research.

Clinical case study: Clinical case studies present the details of real patient cases from medical or clinical practice in which telehealth technology played a significant role. The cases presented are usually those that contribute significantly to the existing knowledge on the field. The study is expected to discuss signs, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of a disease.

Clinical trial: Clinical trials describe the methodology, implementation, and results of controlled studies in which telehealth technology played a significant role. Please see “Format” and “Manuscript” sections below under “Journal Information.”

Technological Report: These reports focus on telehealth technology in healthcare. Priority is given to papers on the technical underpinnings of an initiative presented in a manner that informs influencers in making decisions in this space. For example, relevant pragmatic work on change management, human factors, and design thinking that accompany innovation should include actual implementation experience whenever available. Reports of metrics to measure these components is highly recommended.

Perspective, opinion, and interview: These are scholarly reviews of fundamental concepts or prevalent ideas in a field of telehealth technology. A perspective piece can be a review of a single concept or a few related concepts. These articles may represent an expert opinion or considered point of view, alerts of potential problems, observations, comments, controversies and opinions. It can contain a single concept or several related concepts.

Book review: The aim of a book review is to provide insight and opinion on recently published scholarly books on telehealth technology or related topic.

Authorship and related information

Note: The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has published the “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals,” (ICMJE Recommendations, formerly “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts”). TMT is sharing, and endeavors to follow the ICMJE recommendations for scholarly medical journals, as it aspires to adhere to the highest standards of scholarly publication practices. Details may be obtained here. TMT requires these guidelines and recommendations are met for authors submitting papers to TMT for review and publication.

Below you will find the "Role of Authors and Contributors" as outlined by ICMJE. Should you wish for a more detailed explanation, please see click here.

Manuscripts should only be submitted for consideration once authorization of all contributing authors is gathered. The list of authors will include those who can legitimately claim authorship. This includes all those who:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Authors will meet the conditions of all of the points above. Each author will have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the submission's content.

Obtaining funding, collecting of data, or overall supervision of a research group does not qualify authorship. Contributors who do not meet the criteria above can be listed in the Acknowledgments section of your manuscript submission. See the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines for "Non-Author Contributors" at the bottom of this link.

CRITERIA FOR PUBLICATION

TMT applies rigorous editorial and peer review by a team of independent professional expert editors in the field of telehealth and telemedicine and related field of expertise.

Within the scope of the journal's editorial mission, manuscripts should represent:

Originality and practicality in advancing telehealth in the value based care environment
Importance to research, practice, outcomes, or changes in the field
Interest and relevance for those outside the audience
Rigorous methodology, with conclusions justified by evidence based outcomes presented
Adherence to the highest ethical standards

Article Processing Fee is waived at this time

What does the article-processing charge (APC) cover?
Open access (OA) journals provide unrestricted, immediate online access to peer-reviewed scholarly research. Costs are involved in every stage of the publication process, from peer review, to copy editing, hosting the final article on dedicated servers, use and licensing of software. TMT is not a subscription based publication.

Why do authors pay article-processing charges (APC)?
TMT is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. To provide open access, the journal charges publication fees for each article published. These fees cover the expenses incurred for publication, including the peer review process, journal production, publication, hosting, and archiving fees. FEES are waived at this time.

Refund policy

There are no refunds for Open Access articles once published.

There is no fee for non-research articles published although they too, undergo peer review.

Competing interests

The TMT editors are not paid a fixed salary. Editors, editorial board members, and peer reviewers are required to declare all relevant competing interests and do not participate in the review of any submission for which they have a competing interest.

TMT requires all peer reviewers, editorial board members and journal staff to disclose relevant financial relationships. An individual has a relevant financial relationship if he/she and/or a spouse or partner had a financial relationship in any amount occurring in the last 12 months with a commercial interest (i.e., any entity producing, marketing, re-selling, or distributing health care goods or service consumed by, or used on, patients. Stocks, ICO etc.) Conflict of interest statements are located on the "Editorial Team" drop down menu on the "About Us" tab on the site.

Open access

TMT publishes these articles under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license that allows reuse subject only to the use being non-commercial and to the article being fully attributed (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0). TMT makes all open access articles freely available on TMT website from the date of publication.

TMT research articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. This requires journalists, PIOs and bloggers to credit TMT as the source and provide a link to the journal and/or the original article in online coverage.

Open access articles can be identified by the Creative Commons copyright statement that appears at the end of the article and takes the following form:

“This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, adapt, enhance this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0.”
or
“This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, adapt and enhance this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0.”

TMT will also send these articles, without further intervention from the author, to PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine’s full text article archive, where they will be made fully available in future in PubMed’s open access subset.

Embargo Policy:

The content of accepted articles cannot appear in print, on media outlets, or electronic form (including blogs and discussion groups), prior to publication on the TMT website. Abstracts of work may be presented at scientific conferences.

Manuscript Sections and Organization

Most manuscripts should be organized as follows. Instructions for each element appear below.

Title
Authors
Affiliations
Conflict of Interest Declarations
Abstract
Introduction
Methods (or Methods and Materials)
Results
Discussion
Acknowledgments
References
Supporting information captions
Redundancy
Funding statement

Parts of a Submission

Note: Please Upload information and details regarding Authors List through Conflict of Interest Declarations in a SEPARATE document file and upload it independent of the actual manuscript to ensure double blind peer review.

Title

Include a full title of up to 200 characters.

Author List

Authorship requirements

Authorship criteria is based on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) as stated above under Authorship and related information. The link can be accessed here.

The ICMJE lists four conditions for authorship credit. Authors must meet all four conditions in order to be listed.

Substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, and
Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and
Final approval of the version to be published, and
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved

Author names and affiliations

On the title page of your submission, enter author names of the manuscript. Write author names in the following order:

First name (or initials, if used), then Middle name (or initial), and then Last name (surname/family name)

Each author on the list must have an affiliation. The affiliation may include department, university, or organizational affiliation. Please include locations such as city, state/province (if applicable), and country.

If an author has multiple affiliations, enter them all on the title page only. In the TMT submission system, enter only the preferred or primary affiliation. Author affiliations will be listed in the same order they are listed in the submission file.

Author names will be published exactly as they appear in the manuscript. TMT will not be responsible for incorrectly submitted information.

Corresponding author

The submitting author will be designated as the corresponding author in the submission system. Corresponding authors act as TMT's primary submission contact and the only author able to view or change the manuscript while it is under editorial review.

The corresponding author role may be transferred to another coauthor. Transferring the corresponding author role also transfers access to the manuscript submission. The corresponding author will be listed as such upon publication. Please include an email address for each corresponding author listed on the title page of the manuscript.

Author Contributions

To qualify for authorship, all contributors must meet at least one of the seven core contributions (conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation), as well as at least one of the writing contributions (original draft preparation, review and editing). Authors may also satisfy the other remaining contributions; however, these alone will not qualify them for authorship.

Contributions will be published with the final article, and they should accurately reflect contributions to the work. The submitting author is responsible for completing this information at submission, and we expect that all authors will have reviewed, discussed, and agreed to their individual contributions.

All authors will be contacted via email at submission to ensure that they are aware of and approve the submission of the manuscript.

Cover letter

The cover letter should address the following questions:

Why is this manuscript suitable for publication in TMT?
Why will your study inspire researchers or clinicians, and how will it improve patient care or public health, or drive the understanding of the health sector forward?

All cover letters should contain these sentences:

We confirm that this manuscript has not been published elsewhere, no parts are plagiarized in any form or degree, and is not under consideration by another journal.
All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to Telehealth and Medicine Today

Redundant or Duplicate Publication

According to COPE, a redundant publication is a wok or sections of that work that is published more than once. If redundant or duplicate publication is attempted or occurs without notification to TMT, the journal will follow the editorial action contained in the COPE Flowchart for Redundant Publication.

Authors should alert the editor if the work includes subject matter about which a previous paper has been published. Referred work should be referenced in the new paper. Copies of materials, including papers in press, should be submitted with your manuscript submission to assist the editor in determining how to handle the issue.

Conflict of Interest Declarations: (Follows corresponding author cover letter)

Competing interests include any financial interests, direct or indirect, that might raise questions regarding bias in the your work, conclusions, implications or perspectives stated – including relevant commercial or other sources of funding for each individual author(s).

All authors are required to declare a Conflict of Interest upon submission in their cover letter. If your manuscript is published, the information will be published at the end of your paper.

In addition, authors are asked to complete and submit signed Conflict of Interest statement(s) if your article is accepted for publication. This declaration should list specific competing interests associated with any of the authors. If authors declare that no competing interests exist, TMT will include a statement at the end of your paper.

It is the role of the corresponding author to ensure this is adhered to.

Conflict of Interest Declarations Template

To facilitate your submission, you may ask TMT for a template form to fill out and submit, or you may use the outline below to create and submit your own.

Manuscript title:

The authors whose names are listed immediately below certify that they have NO affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest (such as honoraria; educational grants; participation in speakers’ bureaus; membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest; and expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements), or non-financial interest (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs) in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

The authors whose names are listed immediately below report the following details of affiliation or involvement in an organization or entity with a financial or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. Please specify the nature of the conflict on a separate sheet of paper if the space below is inadequate.

Author names:

This statement is signed by all the authors to indicate agreement that the above information is true and correct

Author's name (typed) Author's signature Date

Title page of manuscript

Only the title should appear on the title page.

Authors, and affiliations should NOT be included on the title page of the manuscript. This ensures double blind peer review.

Abstract

Your original research submission MUST contain an abstract. The Abstract comes after the title page in the manuscript file. The journal requires structured abstracts. The abstract should be 250-400 words. Please see CONSORT or PRISMA style abstract formats to determine which to use for your paper.

The abstract must be structured with headings (Objective, Design, Setting, Participants, Interventions, Main outcome measures, Results, Conclusions. For meta-analyses usually Objective, Design, Results, Conclusion headings are needed.

Please provide trial registration number for clinical randomized controlled trials

Background

This section should clearly describe your study rationale. It should end with a statement of the specific study hypothesis and/or study objectives.

Methods and Findings

Describe study participants or what was studied (e.g., patient population, be specific). Describe the study design, intervention, methods used, outcome measure(s), and any follow up.
Include how many participants completed out of those enrolled, and response rates where applicable.
Describe how results were analyzed, i.e., which specific statistical tests were used.
Describe the main outcomes and quantify results using % confidence intervals if possible. Describe adverse events.
Describe any limitations of the study.

Conclusions

Provide an interpretation of results with recommendations for future research.
For clinical trials, provide the trial identification number(s) and name(s) (e.g., trial registration number, protocol number or acronym).

Introduction

The Introduction should present a broad context for the manuscript. Think of readers who are not experts that may read your article. Include a brief review of key literature. If there are relevant issues pro and con in the field, mention them so a non-expert can understand. The Introduction should end with a statement of the overall purpose of the experiment(s) and a commentary on whether it was achieved.

Methods

The Methods should provide enough detail for reproduction of the findings. Protocols for new methods should be included. Well-established methodological procedures may simply be referenced. A full description of the methods should be included within the manuscript.

Methods should also include a section with descriptions of any statistical methods used. The description should conform to the ICMJE Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: Writing and editing for biomedical publication, published in the J Pharmacol Pharmacother. 2010 Jan-Jun; 1(1): 42–58., and available at the following link here. It reads as follows:

"Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to judge its appropriateness for the study and to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as P values, which fail to convey important information about effect size and precision of estimates. References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be to standard works when possible (with pages stated). Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the statistical software package(s) and versions used. Distinguish pre-specified from exploratory analyses, including subgroup analyses."

Submit detailed protocols for newer or less established methods. Well-established protocols may simply be referenced. Protocol documents for clinical trials, observational studies, and other non-laboratory investigations may be uploaded as supporting information.

We recommend you explore laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where protocols can be assigned their own persistent digital object identifiers (DOIs).

To include a link to a protocol in your article:

Describe your step-by-step protocol on protocols.io
Select Get DOI to issue your protocol a persistent digital object identifier (DOI)
Include the DOI link in the Methods section of your manuscript using the following format provided by protocols.io.

This allows editors and reviewers to consult your protocol when evaluating the manuscript. Any referenced protocol(s) will automatically be made public when your article is published.

Results

The Results section should include all primary and secondary outcome measures analyzed. The section may be divided into subsections, each with a concise subheading. Tables and figures central to the study should be included in the main paper. The Results section should be written in past tense.

TMT require authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction.

For smaller data sets and certain data types, authors may provide their data within their manuscript or in Supporting Information files accompanying the manuscript. Authors should attempt to maximize the accessibility and reusability of data by selecting file formats where data can be easily and efficiently extracted. An example is spreadsheets or flat files in lieu of PDFs for tabulated data.

Again, as outlined in the ICMJE Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: Writing and editing for biomedical publication, published in the J Pharmacol Pharmacother. 2010 Jan-Jun; 1(1): 42–58., and available at the following link here. The following is recommended:

"Give numeric results not only as derivatives (for example, percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which the derivatives were calculated, and specify the statistical significance attached to them, if any. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess supporting data. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Avoid nontechnical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as “random” (which implies a randomizing device), “normal,” “significant,” “correlations,” and “sample.”

Discussion

The Discussion should be tightly argued. Start with a summary of the main findings. Include paragraphs on the generalizability, clinical relevance, strengths, and limitations of your study.

You may also want to add the following:

How conclusions affect existing knowledge in the field?
How might future research build on your observations and what path forward should we seek as a result?

Acknowledgments

Those who contributed to the work but do not meet authorship criteria should be listed in Acknowledgments with a description of their role. Authors are responsible for ensuring those named in Acknowledgments agree to be included.

DO NOT include funding sources in this section. Funding information is only entered in the FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE section.

Funding statement

This section should describe sources of funding that have supported the work. Please include relevant grant numbers and the URL of any funder's web site. Please also include this sentence: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” Otherwise, describe the role of your sponsors or funders, and amend the aforementioned sentence as needed.

Competing Interests

Authors are asked to complete and submit signed Conflict of Interest statement(s) if an article is accepted for publication. This declaration lists specific competing interests associated with any of the authors. If authors declare that no competing interests exist, the article will include a statement to this effect. Please see Conflict of Interest Declarations above.

References

All available works can be cited in the reference list. Acceptable sources include:

Published or accepted manuscripts
Manuscripts on preprint servers, if the manuscript is submitted to a journal and also publicly available as a preprint

Do not cite the following sources in the reference list:

Unavailable and unpublished work, submitted but not yet accepted manuscripts. Include this data as supplementary material or deposit the data in a publicly available database.

References are listed at the end of the manuscript and numbered in the order that they appear in the text.

Do not include citations in abstracts or author summaries.

Make sure the parts of the manuscript are in the correct order before ordering the citations.

Formatting references

TMT will make every effort to link references electronically to the papers they cite, therefore, proper formatting of the references is crucial.

TMT uses the reference style outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), also referred to as the “Vancouver” style.

Supporting Information

Authors can submit essential supporting files and multimedia files along with their manuscripts. All supporting information will be subject to peer review. All file types can be submitted. Supporting information files are published exactly as provided, and are not copyedited.

Supporting information captions

List supporting information captions at the end of the manuscript file and not in a separate file. The file number and name are required in a caption. We recommend including a one-line title. You can include a legend, but it is not required.

In-text citations

We suggest you cite supporting information in the manuscript text, but this is not a requirement. If you cite supporting information in the text, citations do not need to be in numerical order.

Figures, Tables and Multimedia

Figure preparation files

TMT does not redraw figures.

Figure citations

Cite figures consecutively in the order they have been cited in the text. If you are using a figure that has been published previously, you must obtain written approval to reproduce it.

Figure captions must be inserted in the text of the manuscript immediately following the paragraph in which the figure was first cited (read order). Do not include captions as part of the figure files themselves. Please be sure all numbers, letters, and symbols that appear with figures are large enough to read when they are reduced for publication.

Legends for illustrations should be on a separate page of the manuscript.

Upon revision, each figure must be prepared and submitted to the submission system as an individual file.

Tables

Cite tables in ascending numeric order upon first appearance in the manuscript file.

Place each table in your manuscript file directly after the paragraph in which it is first cited (read order). Do not submit your tables in separate files.

Tables require a label (e.g., “Table 1”) and brief descriptive title to be placed above the table. Place legends, footnotes, and other text below the table.

Multimedia and 3D Models

TMT publishes multimedia and 3D models embedded in the HTML and PDF versions of articles. These will be displayed in line with article text, as are with figures.

Multimedia and 3D models are accepted when needed to show findings that 1) are critical to argue article conclusions and 2) can't be satisfactorily presented in text, table, or figure. The editors will determine if this medium is used appropriately.

Text Citation

Multimedia and 3D models must be numbered independently of figures and tables, and cited at the relevant point in the manuscript text, e.g., “Movie 1”, and “Model 1”.

Title

A title should be part of the legend and not incorporated in the multimedia or 3D model itself.

Legends

A legend must be included in the manuscript document after the reference list and not included in the video or 3D model itself. Legends should include sufficient detail to be intelligible without reference to the text. Legends must define all symbols and include essential information. If videos are not in real time and the time is not displayed in the video, the period represented must be stated in the legend. Rather than stating “See text,” legends should be more specific; for example, “See Results”.

Size and Format

Video and 3D models should be sized at minimum to convey essential scientific information. Multimedia files must be in MP4 format, and should not be larger than one megabyte. 3D models must be in U3D format.

Please be sure to optimize videos for PC, tablet, and smartphone viewing.

For each video, please submit a preview image, or poster frame, that best illustrates the main focus.

Should you have additional questions as to Figures, Tables, and Multimedia, please contact the managing editor or publisher.

Journal Policies and Operations Procedures

Peer review
Editorial decisions
Appeals
Unlabeled use
Content validation
Authorship
Patient consent
Statistical analysis
Data sharing
Proofs and reprint
Ethical publishing
Plagiarism
Confidentiality
Biosecurity and dual use
Complains
External ethics referees

Peer review

Becoming a Reviewer

Editors are selected either by self-nomination, in which case TMT reviews curriculum vitaes and conducts interviews with the candidate and/or colleagues and experts in the field; or by nominations that are made from the Academic Editor-in-Chief and Board recommendations. The same review and interview process is conducted. TMT seeks the experts of the highest caliber and passion for the field, and prefers Editors possess knowledge of an academic journal operations and familiarity with the peer review process. Maintaining a collegial, team oriented environment is important to learn, share, grow, and build lasting professional relationships.

Peer review policy

All articles, with the exception of opinion editorials, are peer reviewed before a final decision about acceptance for publication. Expert reviewers are asked to assess the technical and scientific merits of the work. Where relevant, work presented in a manuscript undergoes a rigorous review of the statistical methods used.

As part of the review process, TMT strives to ensure that the peer review is fair, unbiased and timely. All manuscripts and associated material submitted to TMT remain confidential while under review. More information on related COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines and standards followed by TMT are here.

TMT Peer Review is double blind. All manuscripts submitted for publication undergo peer review including those written by board members. All articles reporting original research submitted by Editors is peer reviewed.

TMT‘s editorial team strives to ensure that peer review is fair, unbiased, and timely. TMT endeavors to review submission within 7-10 days. Material submitted to TMT remains confidential while under review.

Submissions are rejected most often due to poor formatting and lack of substantiating claims. Two to three peer reviewers are assigned to each paper. If we do not possess board expertise to conduct a review, we will ask the author for suggestions for expert reviewers, and invite them to act as expert peer reviewer for the submission. This will likely delay the review process, but is important to maintain the integrity of the journal and peer review process for authors and submissions. We will inform authors to expect a delays with the review process.

Peer Reviewer’s Check List

Reviews are made within the PKP journal software platform. Reviewers will be selected based on expertise in the sector. TMT reviewers will recuse themselves if they have a potential competing interest, including the following:

Prior or current collaborations with the author(s)
Reviewer is a direct competitor
Reviewer may have a known history of antipathy with the author(s)
Reviewer may profit financially from the work

When submitting a review, the Reviewer will indicate whether or not competing interests exist.

Writing the Review

The purpose of the review is to provide the Editor-in-Chief and managing editor with an expert opinion regarding the quality of the manuscript under consideration, and should also supply authors with clear and concise feedback on how to improve their papers so that they will be acceptable for publication in TMT.

All comments made are transmitted to the author.

Reviewers are asked to consider the following when reviewing a submission:

What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?
Are these claims novel? If not, please specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.
Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?
Do the results support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?
If a protocol is provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?
Would any other experiments or additional information improve the paper? How much better would the paper be if this extra work was done, and how difficult would such work be to do, or to provide?
Is this paper outstanding in its discipline? (For example, would you like to see this work presented in a seminar or university? Do you feel these results need to be incorporated in your next general lecture on the subject?) If yes, what makes it outstanding? If not, why not?
Who would find this paper of interest? Why?
If the paper is considered unsuitable for publication in its present form, does the study itself show sufficient enough potential that the authors should be encouraged to resubmit a revised version?

Reviewers are asked to be honest, not offensive in language, clear and concise. This is not to be confused with criticism.

Will authors know who is reviewing their manuscript?

Reviewers’ identities are anonymous unless a reviewer indicates otherwise.

Can authors exclude Editorial Board Reviewers or Independent Reviewers?

Upon submission of a manuscript, authors can request to exclude a specific reviewer from the peer review of their article. The editorial team respects these requests when it does not interfere with the objective and thorough assessment of the article. Once all reviews are received and considered, a decision letter to the author is drafted.

Editorial decisions

If, after peer review, a manuscript is considered potentially appropriate, revisions are generally requested. Minor revisions are generally requested as a final step before acceptance.

Manuscripts that are rejected typically do not fit criteria for submissions in terms of originality, importance to the field, cross-disciplinary interest, or sound methodology or submission format.

Revisions

The Managing Editor and Primary Reviewer will assess revised manuscripts. Manuscripts that undergo major revision may require re-review or additional statistical review. There is no guarantee of acceptance after major revision.

Appeals

If you wish to appeal a decision contact the Managing Editor who handled the pre-submission inquiry or full manuscript, explaining in detail your reasons for the appeal.

All appeals are discussed with at least one other reviewer and editorial board member. In the case of disagreement the appeal is discussed during a full editorial meeting. TMT may seek external advice on the appeal at its option. Second appeals are not considered.

Editorial Process

Decision process

The professional editors and Academic Editor-in-Chief, together, make a decision based on the reviewers' comments.

Conflicting reviews

If reviewers appear to disagree fundamentally, the editors may choose to share all the reviews with each of the reviewers and by this means elicit additional comment that may help the editors to make a decision. That said, decisions are not necessarily made according to majority rule. Instead, the editors evaluate the recommendations and comments of the reviewers alongside comments by the authors and material that may not have been made available to those reviewers.

Notifying reviewers of decisions

We send reviewers’ comments along with the decision letter to all reviewers of that manuscript. If reviewers have identified themselves, this information will be passed on to other reviewers.

Reviewers who may have offered an opinion not in accordance with the final decision should not feel that their recommendation was not duly considered and their service not properly appreciated. Experts often disagree, and it is the job of the editorial team to make a decision.

Submitting an appeal

Peer review is based on evidence and opinion. When a paper has been revised in response to the review, or when authors appeal against a decision, we will ask the reviewers to offer additional comments. We request that reviewers make themselves available to provide such follow-up advice.

Reviewing Feature Article and Opinion Submissions

TMT will consider the following for Feature article submissions:

Is the article relevant and of interest to an international audience?
Does it address a topic that matters on a global scale? Will it be relevant to high and low income readers and countries?

Do you think this article will have an impact on clinicians, researchers, health policymakers, or the broader public? Will it be widely read, disseminated, and cited? Could it help to improve public and/or global health? Will reporters find it interesting and curious?

Does the article contain inaccurate information? Are the authors' claims evidence-based?
Have the authors missed anything important such as research findings?

Does this article contain enough new information to warrant publication? Does it take the discussion and debate on this topic in a novel direction?

Presentation

Is the article well written, clear, and easy for a non-specialist
If tables and figures have been included, do they help the reader, or hinder the article’s topic and focus? Could they be improved? Do you have suggestions for additional items (summary boxes, graphics etc.)?

Appeals

For feature/opinion articles, where editorial judgment about readability and engagement is most important, an appeal is less likely to overturn our decision. You are welcome to submit a detailed rebuttal letter. Only one appeal will be considered per article.

Disclosure of Unlabeled Use

Articles published by TMT may contain information and discussions of published and/or investigational uses of devices and agents that are not indicated by the Food and Drug Administrations (FDA). Partners in Digital Health do not recommend the use of any devices or agents outside of the labeled indications.

Policy on Content Validation:

All the recommendations involving clinical medicine must be based on evidence that is accepted within the profession of medicine as adequate justification for their indications and contraindications in the care of patients.
All scientific research referred to, reported, or used in justification of a patient care recommendation must conform to the generally accepted standards of experimental design, data collection and analysis.

Authorship and related information

TMT follows the Authorship criteria based on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The link can be accessed here.

The ICMJE lists four conditions for authorship credit. Authors must meet all four conditions in order to be listed. Manuscripts should only be submitted for consideration once authorization of all contributing authors is gathered. The list of authors will include those who can legitimately claim authorship. This includes all those who:

Have made a substantial contribution to the concept and design, acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data
Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content
Approved the version to be published
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved

Authors must meet the conditions of all of criteria above. Each author will have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information. More information is here.

Patient consent

As recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/). Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, 01/02/2018. Available from: http://www.ICMJE.org., authors will ensure the guidelines below are followed. TMT has quoted the text below from ICMJE Protection of Research Participants below:

"Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information, including patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that a patient who is identifiable be shown the manuscript to be published.

Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, however, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is usually inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note. When informed consent has been obtained it should be indicated in the submitted article."

Statistical analyses

Ensure that the methodology has been accurately described for statistical analysis. In comparative studies, power calculations are usually required. In research manuscripts, requiring complex statistics the advice of an expert statistician should be sought at the design/implementation stage of the study and may be appropriate to include them as a co-author. Should you have further questions, please contact the managing editor.

Data sharing

TMT suggests authors include a data sharing statement when making a submission explaining:

What additional unpublished data from the study is available
Who can access the data and how can it be obtained

At present there is no major repository for clinical data, but Dryad has declared its willingness to accept medical datasets.

Corresponding author contact details

Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address, and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.

Proofs and Reprints

PDF proofs will be sent to the corresponding author, who should send corrections as soon as the PDF is received. These corrections should be returned to the Managing Editor.

Order forms for reprints will be emailed to the corresponding author shortly after publication of the article.

Submitted manuscripts should be exclusive to TMT, with the understanding they have not been published elsewhere in any form and will not be submitted elsewhere unless rejected by TMT. Authors are responsible for all statements made in the article and references cited.

Ethical Publishing Practice

TMT strives to abide guidelines and standards prescribed by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), its Code of Conduct, and its Best Practice Guidelines.

Authors, editors, and reviewers are expected to be aware of, and comply with, best practice in publication ethics.

Authors are expected to be aware of, and comply with, best practice in publication ethics specifically but not limited to, dual submission, plagiarism, manipulation of figures, competing interests, and compliance with policies on research ethics.
Reviewers and editors are required to treat manuscripts fairly and in confidence, and to declare competing interests.

TMT will investigate allegations of misconduct and will contact author institutions, funders or regulatory bodies as needed.

TMT will follow the COPE flowcharts and seek guidance as per COPE recommendations. Evidence of misconduct will require corrective action in the form of a scientific record including issuing a correction or retraction.

Address concerns regarding misconduct to the journal’s Editor-in-Chiefs or Managing Editor at info@partnersindigitalhealth.com.

Additional resources on publication ethics are available from COPE, ICMJE, and WAME.