As health care management scholars, many of us are interested in questions of change. Health care is ripe with opportunities to explore such topics, with ever-evolving social, political, and organizational conditions to feed our research agendas. Indeed, the word "change" has appeared in 62 article titles and abstracts published in Health Care Management Review (HCMR) in just the past 10 years. Now more change is coming to HCMR. Effective June 30, 2020, Michele Issel, PhD, RN, will be retiring as Editor-in-Chief of HCMR, and we (Cheryl Rathert, PhD, and Larry R. Hearld, PhD) will assume co-editorship of HCMR. In this joint editorial, we would like to express our gratitude to Michele for her years of editorial leadership at HCMR.
Michele assumed her role as Editor-in-Chief of HCMR in 2005. In her inaugural editorial, Michele described her goals for HCMR as twofold: (a) bring new readers to HCMR and (b) increase the ranking of HCMR among academic journals. She has well exceeded expectations on both goals. Today, HCMR has an impact factor of 2.64 and is ranked 19th out of 81 Health Policy & Services journals, a remarkable improvement from just 2015, when the impact factor was 1.52 and was ranked 41st out of 75 journals. Michele guided HCMR into the digital age and greatly expanded its reach. In 2018, the HCMR website had over 92,000 readers, up 13% from just the previous year. Put simply, under Michele's leadership, HCMR has become one of the "go-to" outlets for publishing high-quality health care scholarship on important issues related to the administration, management, and leadership of health care organizations.
One of the reasons Michele has been so effective at accomplishing these goals is her passion for promoting the Journal. She has been incredibly engaged with and visible in the community of health care management scholars. Under her leadership, HCMR has forged enduring relationships with leading health care management professional organizations, such as the Organization Theory in Health Care Conference and the Health Care Management Division of the Academy of Management. These efforts have not only helped elevate HCMR's visibility and cultivate high-quality contributions but have also helped develop a vibrant, thoughtful community of health care management scholars.
In summary, it is difficult to overstate Michele's success at fulfilling her vision to grow and sustain HCMR as a highly valued journal in the health care management landscape. We have big shoes to fill, and we consider it a privilege to even try to do so. We will be describing our own vision and direction for the Journal in future editorials. Suffice to say for now that it is our intention to build on the strong foundation that Michele has provided in her 15 years at the helm. For that we are grateful to Michele for her exceptional service and leadership. We hope you will join us in thanking Michele for all that she has done for HCMR and the health care management community more generally.
Cheryl Rathert, PhD
Larry R. Hearld, PhD
Co-Editors-in-Chief