Letter to Editor Prompts Change in JPM Submission Requirements

Maggie Rogers, MPH, CAPC's director of research, led a written response to the associate editor of the Journal of Palliative Medicine (JPM), after reading a published 'Note from the Editor'. In the letter, Rogers, et al. agree that it is difficult to understand and prove palliative care's impact when uniformity and standardization in palliative care delivery is the exception, not the rule. They argue that many peer-reviewed studies do not include information about the structures and processes of care that define the palliative care program. This information gap, in turn, creates difficulty for readers in understanding how the results translate to their program(s), among other important issues. Read the letter here.

In response to this letter, JPM has changed their submission requirements — adding a section called "Clinical Palliative Care Program", where all submitting authors must include items such as: program structure; team staffing; program availability; and patient volume and interactions.