Greetings. With the assistance of our Managing Editor, Kate Maude, we evaluated some journal-specific performance measures. I wanted to share some findings from our report. Late last year we reduced the time period from 21 to 14 days for reviewers to return their recommendations to our Associate Editors. This change has resulted in a 43% reduction in time to receive completed manuscript reviews. Also, the number of reviews that were received after the deadline decreased by 36% and the number of days past the deadline to complete these reviews was reduced by 57%. These changes have helped us provide more timely feedback to our authors. I encourage you to share this information with researchers as it certainly is a consideration when deciding to submit a manuscript to a journal. I also am pleased that we started providing authors with more detailed information about preparing manuscripts - see the JCRP Style Guide on the Instructions for Authors page on the Journal's website (http://edmgr.ovid.com/jcrp/accounts/ifauth.htm). This will help improve the efficiency of processing manuscripts through both the review and production stages.
I also want to highlight a few of the articles you will find in the 4th issue of Volume 39. JCRP is pleased to include the Scientific Statement by Thomas et al. focused on home-based cardiac rehabilitation. This Statement is jointly issued from three organizations: the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation, the American Heart Association, and the American College of Cardiology. To gain greater exposure and dissemination, along with JCRP, the Statement is also being co-published in Circulation and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The Statement concludes that home-based cardiac rehabilitation "may be a reasonable option for selected clinically stable low- to moderate-risk patients who are eligible for CR but cannot attend a traditional center-based CR program." This Statement should result in more patients participating in cardiac rehabilitation programs. We congratulate Dr. Randy Thomas and all the writing group for getting this important Statement published. I also want to note that the following members of the writing team are significant contributors to JCRP; Dr. Franklin (Consulting Editor), Dr. Sanderson (Associate Editor), and Drs. Thomas, Beckie, Brown, Forman, and Keteyian (Editorial Board).
Also in this issue are three reviews: one by Moghei et al. addresses the importance of quality improvement in cardiac rehabilitation programs; another by Yong et al. evaluates exercise prescription components for patients with dilated cardiomyopathy; and the third, by Fonseca et al., focuses on muscle dysfunction in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. This issue also contains some excellent Original Investigations and Brief Reports related to both Cardiac Rehabilitation and Pulmonary Rehabilitation.
I encourage you to share the information with your colleagues and collaborators. A great way to do that is via your social media outlets. Please consider 'sharing' a link to the article on the JCRP website to your personal or program's Facebook page or 'tweet' a message about the article on Twitter. I know the authors of these studies would be most grateful for your assistance in helping disseminate their research.
I hope you appreciate the information provided in the articles in this issue and find it useful in either your programming or for your research or both.
Lenny Kaminsky, PhD, FAACVPR, FACSM, FAHA
Editor-in-Chief
Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention