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Health Informatics Journal

Health Informatics Journal


eISSN: 17412811 | ISSN: 14604582 | Current volume: 29 | Current issue: 4 Frequency: Quarterly

Information and communication technology are integral to all areas of health care, from organisational management to the delivery of patient care and health promotion. In this fast-moving arena, Health Informatics Journal provides an international forum for the exchange of practice, innovation and research. Health Informatics Journal is an open access journal. Representing the interdisciplinary nature of health informatics, the journal publishes peer reviewed contributions from the fields of informatics and telematics, the health professions, computer science, engineering and management.

The Editor is keen to receive submissions on any subject relevant to healthcare informatics, but especially welcomes contributions on e-health, electronic patient records; knowledge management, data and text mining; support for clinical decision-making, evidence-based practice; healthcare applications of mobile (mhealth) and pervasive digital technologies; applications of social media technologies and services; telecare and telehealth; security, confidentiality; modeling of healthcare service usage, evaluation and use of healthcare IT, barriers and enablers to adoption, design and development methodologies, workplace studies, dependability of systems and services; innovations and future developments in healthcare technologies and applications.

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Health Informatics Journal is featured in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Open access article processing charge (APC) information

The APC for this journal is $2000 USD.

Contact

For more information on contributing to Health Informatics Journal, please email the Editor, Panagiotis D Bamidis: hijeditor@auth.gr 

Health Informatics Journal is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal. All papers submitted to Health Informatics Journal are subject to peer review by members of a carefully appointed editorial board. The journal operates a double-blind peer review policy.

Representing the interdisciplinary nature of health informatics, Health Informatics Journal welcomes contributions from researchers worldwide who are working in the following areas:

  • informatics and telematics
  • the health professions
  • computer science and engineering
  • healthcare management
  • innovation studies

The Editor is keen to receive submissions on any subject relevant to healthcare informatics, but especially welcomes contributions on e-health, electronic patient records; knowledge management, data and text mining; support for clinical decision-making, evidence-based practice; healthcare applications of mobile (mhealth) and pervasive digital technologies; applications of social media technologies and services; telecare and telehealth; security, confidentiality; modeling of healthcare service usage, evaluation and use of healthcare IT, barriers and enablers to adoption, design and development methodologies, workplace studies, dependability of systems and services; innovations and future developments in healthcare technologies and applications.

For more information on contributing to Health Informatics Journal, please email the Editor, Panagiotis D Bamidis: hijeditor@auth.gr

Editor
Panagiotis D Bamidis Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Associate Editors
Laurence Alpay Inholland University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands
Peter Bath The University of Sheffield, UK
Naleef Fareed Ohio State University Medical Centre, USA
Adela Grando Arizona State University,USA
Stathis Th. Konstantinidis University of Nottingham, UK
Ilias Sachpazidis University of Freiburg, Germany
Khin Tan Win University of Wollongong, Australia
Guanghua Xiao University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, USA
Editorial Board
Rajeev Agrawal G. L. Bajaj Institute of Technology & Management, India
Savvas Anastasiadis Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Antonis Billis Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Eleni Dafli Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Ken Eason Loughborough University, UK
Gunnar Ellingsen Arctic University of Norway, Norway
Paris Gallos University of Pireaus, Greece
S.M.Shamimul Hasan Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA
Matthew Jones University of Cambridge, UK
Bijun Sai Kannadath University of Arizona - College of Medicine Phoenix, USA
Adapa Karthik University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Angelina Kouroubali Foundation for Research & Technology-Hellas Greece
Holger Kunz University College London, UK
Annie Lau Macquarie University, Australia
Xi Long Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
José Manuel Machado University of Minho, Portugal
Stanislav S. Makhanov Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology, Thailand
Flora Malamateniou Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Greg Maniatopoulos Newcastle University, UK
Enea Parimbelli University of Pavia, Italy
Paula M. Procter School of Nursing & Midwifery, University of Sheffield, UK
Mark-Alexander Sujan Warwick Medical School, UK
Oscar Tamburis University of Naples Federico II, Italy
Dang N H Thanh University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Lai Khin Wee University of Malaya, Malaysia
Rob Wilson Northumbria University, UK
Editorial Review Board
Khurshid Ahmad PhD Department of Information Management, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur Pakistan
Seyed Mohammad Ayyoubzadeh, PhD School of Allied Medical Sciences, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
John Robert Carabeo Medina, MD, MHS University of the Philippines Manila - National Institutes of Health, Manila, Philippines
Thierry Oscar Codjo Edoh, PhD RFW-University of Bonn, Ecole Supérieure Multinationale des Telecommunications, Germany
Roshan Hewapathirana, MBBS, MSc (IT), PhD University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Fedor Lehocki, PhD., MPH Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak, University of Technology in Bratislava
Jakir Hossain Bhuiyan Masud, PhD Public Health Informatics Foundation (PHIF)
Jason Mills, PhD, MCHMed, BN(Hons), RN FACN FHEA FRSPH Flinders University, Australia
Hanife Rexhepi, Associate Professor, PhD School of Informatics, University of Skövde, Sweden
Jayesh Soni Florida International University, USA
Joseph Wherton, BSc, PhD University of Oxford, UK
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  • Vocational Search
    1. Open Access
    2. Article processing charge (APC)
    3. What do we publish?
      3.1 Aims & Scope
      3.2 Article Types
    4. Editorial policies
      4.1 Peer Review Policy
      4.2 Authorship
      4.3 Acknowledgements
      4.4 Funding
      4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
      4.6 Research ethics and patient consent
      4.7 Data
    5. Publishing policies
      5.1 Publication ethics
      5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
    6. Preparing your manuscript
      6.1 Word processing formats
      6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
      6.3 Supplementary material
      6.4 Reference style
      6.5 English language editing services
    7. Submitting your manuscript
      7.1 How to submit your manuscript
      7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts
      7.3 Corresponding author contact details
      7.4 ORCID
      7.5 Information required for completing your submission
      7.6 Permissions
    8. On acceptance and publication
      8.1 Sage Production
      8.2 Online publication
      8.3 Promoting your article
    9. Further information

    This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

    This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

    Please read the guidelines below then visit the journal’s submission site https://sage.atyponrex.com/journal/jhi to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.

    Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Health Informatics Journal will be reviewed.As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

    Health Informatics Journal may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy.

    If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

    If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal

    1. Open Access

    Health Informatics Journal is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer review is made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in perpetuity. Publication costs of the journal are covered by the collection of article processing charges which are paid by the funder, institution or author of each manuscript upon acceptance. There is no charge for submitting a paper to the journal.

    For general information on open access at Sage please visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.

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    2. Article processing charge (APC)

    If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is payable. This APC covers the cost of publication and ensures that your article will be freely available online in perpetuity under a Creative Commons license.

    The APC for this journal is 2000 USD.

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    3. Article types

    3.1 Aims & Scope

    Before submitting your manuscript to Health Informatics Journal, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

    3.2 Article Types

    Representing the interdisciplinary nature of health informatics, Health Informatics Journal welcomes contributions of original research or original contributions to the existing literature on health informatics.

    Your manuscript should ideally be between 3000 and 4000 words long. Please also supply an abstract of 100-150 words, and up to five keywords, arranged in alphabetical order.

    There is no limit ot the number of references that can be included in the article.

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    4. Editorial policies

    4.1 Peer review policy

    Health Informatics Journal is an international peer reviewed journal. All papers submitted to Health Informatics Journal are subject to peer review by members of a carefully appointed editorial board. The journal operates a double anonymize reviewing policy. Each paper submitted, if considered suitable by the Editor, will be refereed by at least two anonymous referees.

    The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor / Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

    4.2 Authorship

    Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.

    The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

    1. Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
    2. Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
    3. Approved the version to be published,
    4. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

    Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.

    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. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.

    Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

    4.3 Acknowledgements

    All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

    Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

    4.3.1 Writing assistance

    Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

    4.3.2 Third party submissions

    Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

    • Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
    • Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
    • Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

    Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

    4.4 Funding

    To comply with the guidance for Research Funders, Authors and Publishers issued by the Research Information Network (RIN), Health Informatics Journal additionally requires all Authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. All research articles should have a funding acknowledgement in the form of a sentence as follows, with the funding agency written out in full, followed by the grant number in square brackets:

    This work was supported by the Medical Research Council [grant number xxx].

    Multiple grant numbers should be separated by comma and space. Where the research was supported by more than one agency, the different agencies should be separated by semi-colon, with “and” before the final funder. Thus:

    This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Natural Environment Research Council [grant number zzzz]; and the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number aaaa].

    In some cases, research is not funded by a specific project grant, but rather from the block grant and other resources available to a university, college or other research institution. Where no specific funding has been provided for the research we ask that corresponding authors use the following sentence:

    This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

    Please include this information under a separate heading entitled “Funding” directly after any other Acknowledgements prior to your “Declaration of Conflicting Interests” (if applicable), any Notes and your References.

    Important note: If you have any concerns that the provision of this information may compromise your anonymity dependent on the peer review policy of this journal outlined above, you can withhold this information until final accepted manuscript.

    For more information on the guidance for Research Funders, Authors and Publishers, please visit the Research Information Network website.

    4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

    Health Informatics Journal encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

    4.6 Research ethics and patient consent

    Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.

    Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.

    For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.

    Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file.

    Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants

    4.7 Data

    At Sage we are committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research. Where relevant, Health Informatics Journal encourages authors to share their research data in a suitable public repository subject to ethical considerations and to include a data accessibility statement in their manuscript file. Authors should also follow data citation principles. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway, which includes information about Sage’s partnership with the data repository Figshare.

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    5. Publishing policies

    5.1 Publication ethics

    Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.

    5.1.1 Plagiarism

    Health Informatics Journal and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

    5.1.2 Prior publication

    If material has been previously published, it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

    5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

    Before publication Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Health Informatics Journal publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For more information, you are advised to visit Sage's OA licenses page. Alternative license arrangements are available, for example, to meet particular funder mandates, made at the author’s request. 

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    6. Preparing your manuscript

    6.1 Word processing formats

    The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

    6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

    For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines  

    Figures supplied in color will appear in color online.

    6.3 Supplementary material

    Health Informatics Journal does not currently accept supplemental files.

    6.4 Reference style

    Health Informatics Journal adheres to the Sage Vancouver reference style. View the Sage Vancouver guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style. 

    If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Vancouver EndNote output file

    6.5 English language editing services

    Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

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    7. Submitting your manuscript

    7.1 How to submit your manuscript

    Health Informatics Journal – to submit a new article, please go to our new submission site, Sage Journals Submission: https://sage.atyponrex.com/journal/jhi. From this site you can create submissions and revisions and track the status of your manuscripts. Please note, you will need to create a new CONNECT account on the Sage Journals Submission site the first time you use it, your Sage Track account will not work on this submission system.

    IMPORTANT: To submit a revision for a manuscript that was submitted to Health Informatics Journal via Sage Track prior to 9th August 2023, please submit your revision in Sage Track, not via Sage Journals Submission. All transfers into Health Informatics Journal will also need to be submitted via Sage Track. Please reference the email you received after approving the transfer or reach out to our Transfer Support Team for assistance.

    7.2 Titles, keywords and abstracts

    Please supply a title, short title, an abstract and keywords to accompany your article. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as Google. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords by visiting the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidelines on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

    7.3 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 co-authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.

    You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

    7.4 ORCID

    As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

    The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

    If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

    7.5 Information required for completing your submission

    You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed on the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

    7.6 Permissions

    Please ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

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    8. On acceptance and publication

    If your paper is accepted for publication after peer review, you will first be asked to complete the contributor’s publishing agreement. Once your manuscript files have been checked for Sage Production, the corresponding author will be asked to pay the article processing charge (APC) via a payment link. Once the APC has been processed, your article will be prepared for publication and can appear online within an average of 30 days. Please note that no production work will occur on your paper until the APC has been received.

    8.1 Sage Production

    Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit, or by email to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly.  Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.

    8.2 Online publication

    One of the many benefits of publishing your research in an open access journal is the speed to publication. With no page count constraints, your article will be published online in a fully citable form with a DOI number as soon as it has completed the production process. At this time it will be completely free to view and download for all. 

    8.3 Promoting your article

    Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.  

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    9. Further information

    Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the Manuscript Submission process should be sent to the Health Informatics Journal editorial office at jhi@sagepub.com.

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