1
Journal of Trauma and
Acute Care Surgery
Editorial Board Report
Las Vegas, Nevada
September 9, 2015
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Table of Contents
Journal Content…………..…………….…………………………………………………1
Editorial Processing……...………………………………………………………………7
Production………………………………………………………………………….………..8
Reviewers………………….…………………………….…………………………………..9
Editorial Board…………………………………..….……………………………………10
Impact Factor……………………….…..……..…...…………………………………..10
Citation Analysis…..……………………………..…...……………….………………11
Alternative Metrics…………………………………………………………………….16
Media.……………..………………………………..…...…………………………………18
Supplements…………………………………………….………………………………..18
Online Educational Content………………………………………………………..19
Benchmarks………………………………………………………………………………..21
Contacts……………………………………………….…………………………………….21
Appendix I: AAST Papers Published in 2015.……………………………….22
Appendix II: Uncited Articles, 2012-2013..………………………………….27
Appendix III: Top-Cited Articles, 2014-2015.……………………………….31
Appendix IV: Social Media Analytics………...………………………………..33
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Article Changes As announced last year, word count and reference limits were extended in 2015.
The upper limit for original articles, reviews, opinion pieces, and special reports were raised — authors who require more space are granted waivers on request.
We also revised the scope and form of the Surgical History article type. Generally, these articles have featured vignettes of personalities or no-table historical events. This year, the concept has shifted to include first person accounts of more recent events.
We can’t take the credit for this. The shift was prompted by a proposal by one author, Dr. David Boyd, whose work is featured in the September issue. Dr. Boyd wrote a comprehensive narrative of his pioneering work in trauma systems development, which we were delighted to publish.
Going forward, we hope to encourage other surgeons who occupy unique places in the history of trauma and acute care surgery to share their stories.
Author Instructions & Policies In line with the refinements made to article types, we have again updated our author instructions and reviewer guidelines. These will go live on the web site later this year in anticipation of 2016 submissions. Additions include more detail on editorial process and a streamlining of the production section.
The most significant change involves the mandatory submission of reporting guideline checklists at submission. Authors will be required to submit ARRIVE and CONSORT checklists for animal studies and RCTs, respectively. As before, PRISMA and MOOSE checklists will be requested as needed.
This change was prompted by results from a two-year multi-publication study by the University of Oxford and Université Paris Descartes. The Journal was invited to participate as one of the first surgical journals to recom-mend adherence to international reporting standards (e.g. EQUATOR network guidelines). Since reviewing re-sults, we have determined that a more active implementation of reporting standards is required.
Hybrid Open Access The Journal’s publisher unveiled a hybrid open access option (OA) last year. As of writing, six articles have been
made open — i.e. made freely available to readers while lifting restrictions on reuse and distribution.
Providing an open access option has become critical for subscription-based journals, primarily due to mandates from funding bodies. In January 2015, the Gates Foundation became the latest funder to require open access for peer-reviewed research. There are now 724 mandates for OA across international funders and institutions.
Most Journal studies are not funded by bodies with OA requirements, but uptake has been good. The earliest adopter was Dr. Zsolt Balogh et al, who opened access on a WTA paper that published in Feb 2015.
As more authors signed on earlier this year, we created a topical collection at jtrauma.com to centralize open work. Authors may request OA at acceptance, or even retroactively apply after publication by contacting the editorial office.
Journal Content
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2015 Published Content Eleven issue lineups have been created as of 7 September 2015. Nine issues and two supplements have printed. Issues featured the breakdown of articles below.
Journal Content
As described in earlier reports, the editorial team strives to frontload content — that is, publish more articles earlier in the year. This standard practice provides a longer window of time for more articles to be cited. For the second year in a row, we have not accomplished perfectly frontloaded publica-tion patterns. Due to production schedules and lower rates of early AAST meeting sub-missions, we don’t expect to return to the frontloading seen in 2012-2013. In 2012, we determined the ideal issue size to be 250 pages maximum, which worked out to 30-35 typeset articles. However, in 2015, we expanded word count and refer-ence limits for nearly all article types. This was prompted by an in-house analysis of highly cited articles in surgery, which are generally longer. The modified article count for an “ideal” issue was recalculated to be 25-30 articles. The current year started with issues under 250 pages. Since then, we’ve peaked to 243 pages. We expect the November issue (28 articles) and December issue of WTA papers (n=30, as of 7 September 2015) to be ~200 pages.
78.1 78.2 78.3 78.4 78.5 78.6 79.1 79.2 79.3 79.4 79.5 THOR IFCK MHSRS
Editorials 1 2 1 1 1 1 2
Society Plenary Papers 11 11 8 4 5 10 18 2 7 5
Original Articles 5 19 16 18 17 7 2 16 13 19 6 9 23
Editorial Critiques 14
Review Articles 4 1 2 1 3 1 3 3 6 2
Guidelines 2 1 1
Current Opinions 1 1 2 2 1 1 3 1
Proc & Tech 1 1 1 1
Brief Reports 1 1 1 2 1
Consensus/Proceedings 1 1
Special Reports 1 1 1
Book Reviews 1 1 1
Surgical History 1 1 1
ACS Challenge 1 1 1
Ad Libitum
Letters 2 7 2 1 5 2
Errata/Corrigenda
Items published 29 33 31 28 29 32 23 25 32 28 14 10 29
SupplementsRegular issues (Volumes 78-79)
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AAST 2014 Content From the 2014 meeting, the Journal received 144 plenary, poster and quick shot manuscripts. This is similar to the number received this time last year from the 2013 meeting (i.e. 145 papers). Of the submitted papers, 126 have received final decisions. Overall, 57% of submissions have been accepted. Plenary papers have been accepted at a lower rate than in previous years. The editors attribute this to more ro-bust review, which includes full biostatistical/methodological evaluation, for every submission. Quick shots from the 2014 meeting have been accepted at a slightly higher rate than poster papers. Please note that the ‘plenary papers’ category in below also includes presidential, master surgeon, and Fitts Ora-tion papers. Additionally, ANZAST papers presented at the 2012 meeting were coded as AAST plenary papers.
From the 2014 meeting, only one plenary paper was not received. The authors submitted a manuscript on deadline, but it was returned for minor correction. When an amended paper is submitted, review will proceed. The presidential address and Fitts Oration of 2014 published in the April 2015 issue of the Journal. President Cioffi’s address is free to access online.
The first three issues of the year featured a tag line noting that issues featured content from AAST’s 73rd annual meeting. As seen below, design slightly shift-ed this year to accommodate an updated list of affiliate societies.
AAST 2014 MIA
Paper #62 — Doty et al. “Outcomes after severe injury
can be predicted utilizing annual individual trauma surgeon
experience“
January 2014 January 2015
Please see Appendix I for a com-
plete list of 77 AAST papers that
have published (or are scheduled
to publish) in 2015.
Journal Content
Received
to Date*% Accepted
Received
to Date*% Accepted
Received
to Date*% Accepted
2015 41 9 8
2014 70 83% 53 33% 21 42%
2013 69 93% 63 35% 18 72%
2012 83 86% 62 49% - -
2011 73 91% 48 71% - -
* Submissions and decision counts as of September 5, 2015
Meeting
Year
AAST Plenary AAST Poster AAST Quick Shot
4
Affiliate Society Content Several issue lineups have been created as of Sep-tember 7, 2015. Nine issues have printed. The Oc-tober issue is currently in production, along with one supplement. AAST meeting papers were concentrated in the first three issues of the year. A total of 77 papers have published or are scheduled to appear. The first batch of PTS papers published in June, and the annual EAST issue appeared in July. The WTA issue, containing at least 27 articles, is sched-uled for December.
The fluctuations in published society papers illustrated above mirrors changes in podium paper acceptance rates. As seen at left, AAST 2014 podium papers were accepted at a lower rate than in previous years. EAST and WTA acceptance rates appear to have
peaked in 2014.
AAST 2015 Content The rate of submission of AAST papers has been slower this year. Although 76 meeting papers have been submitted overall, only 16 submissions were received by August 1st. To compare, 38 submis-sions were received by the August deadline in 2014. Manuscripts submitted by the August 1st deadline receive expe-dited review and thus become the first eligible for publication. Due to the low receipt rate, we anticipate that the January 2016 issue will feature fewer meeting papers than in previous years. Of the 76 submissions received for the AAST’s 74th annual meet-ing, none have been accepted. Any papers accepted by October 11, 2015, will be scheduled to publish in the January 2016 issue.
Journal Content
Article Type 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
AAST Podium Papers 91% 86% 93% 83% in progress
EAST Podium Papers 53% 90% 85% 97% 93%
PTS Podium Papers - - - 50% in progress
TAC Podium Papers 55% 18% 60% 43% 50%
WTA Podium Papers 83% 75% 70% 94% 90%
Independent Submissions 55% 33% 24% 20% 19%
*Decision counts as of 7 September 2015.
Society Podium Paper Acceptance Rates, 2011-2015*
Status of AAST 2015 Papers
(as of September 7, 2015)
Podium Papers
0 Accept
6 Revision
44 Under Review
2 Submitted or with authors
52 Total submissions
Quick Shots
0 Accept
1 Revision
9 Under Review
1 Reject
1 Submitted or with authors
12 Total submissions
Poster Papers
0 Accept
3 Revise
2 Reject
7 Under Review
12 Total submissions
AAST Plenary AAST Poster AAST Quick Shot
Received Received Received
2015* 41 9 8
2014** 53 24 9* AAST 2015 submissions and decision counts as of September 5, 2015
* AAST 2014 submissions and decision counts as of September 5, 2014
Meeting
Year
Comparison of AAST Meeting Submissions, 2014 & 2015
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Submission Trends The submission rate has now stabilized, after the drop in 2013, as seen at right. As of September 7, 2015, the Journal has received 893 new submissions, an increase over the two prior years. Due to the institution of routine statistical review on revision, papers are now undergoing more revisions. This is illustrated by the all-time high of 182 revisions received from January to April 2015.
We’ve looked at the rate of papers lost to follow-up. In 2014, 584 revisions were requested, 542 were returned — only 7% did not complete the cycle. This is a marked increase from 5 years ago, when 55% of papers were not returned after re-ceiving a decision. This year, we are currently enjoying a 100% revi-sion response rate (i.e. all authors have returned papers after each request for revisions).
Submission Demographics For the last three years, the editors have been aware that interna-tional submissions are declining. North American authors currently send in 57% of new manuscripts (up from 48% in 2011). In 2014, international authors contributed to 10% of all published articles –– still a minority, but higher than all previous years across surgical titles (cf. 4% of JACS articles in 2014 featured researchers from more than one country). The rise in North American submissions has been met with a con-comitant drop in papers from abroad. “International submission” here is defined as a manuscript for which at least one author is based outside of North America. For example, in 2011, Asia and Europe accounted for 27% and 21% of new manuscripts, respectively. In 2015, authors from Asia con-tributed 23% of submissions, while European submissions are at 15.5%. Submissions from South & Latin America, Africa, Australia, and Oceania regions have remained constant (1-2%), as illustrated at right. Details on regional submissions and publications by member status can be found in the Citation Analysis (p. 12).
Journal Content
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Decision Trends
Last year, the overall rejection rate for independent submissions to the Journal was 76%. In 2015, the rejection rate has increased to 84%. Note that the monthly rates illustrated in the graph at right do not include soci-ety (AAST, ANZAST, EAST, PTS, TAC, and WTA papers) or supplement sub-missions. Rejection rate is continually tracked to ensure that content remains available for issues — if the rate rises during a month in which submissions drop, the editor is notified.
The table at left illustrates annu-al acceptance/rejection rates by submission type. The “all submis-sions” rejection rate of 68% in-cludes society and supplement submissions, which are accepted at a higher rate (cf. p. 4).
Previous editorial reports have touched on the editorial process, but below we present a full year of data on deci-sion frequencies. The data illustrate greater rates of acceptance through revisions for independent submissions.
Fifty-eight percent of independent submissions are editorially rejected; for those manuscripts that pass initial review, most are accepted on revision. All revisions are reviewed for statistical and methodological soundness.
Decision Frequencies by Revision Status Sept 1, 2014 to Sept 1, 2015
Total Accepted Rejected Total Accepted Rejected
2015* 893 32% 68% 720 16% 84%
2014 1288 36% 64% 914 24% 76%
2013 1326 39% 61% 1004 29% 71%
2012 1597 43% 57% 1195 33% 67%
2011 1699 55% 47% 1364 44% 56%
* Submissions received year-to-date, January 1-September 7, 2015
All Submissions Independent Submissions Only
Journal Content
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Editorial Processing
New Submissions This year to date, the Journal received 893 new submissions (cf. 823 in 2014). Current average time from submission to first decision can be found at right. As indicated, there has been an overall increase in time to decision — for the last two years, the editors have returned decisions to authors in under 20 days. The current average for first deci-sion turnaround is ~30 days. Time to decision for research papers and review articles is slightly longer than that for all submissions. Non-peer re-viewed material (editorials, opinions) are generally accepted on submission, thereby skewing the results. For original articles and reviews that receive revision decisions, the average is 40 days. Exceptions to the longer review time are editorially rejected papers. For the past three years, the average time for the editor to review and reject a paper without external review has remained static, at 4 days. Currently, 58% of new sub-missions are rejected at the editorial stage.
Revisions This year, as of 7 September 2015, the Journal has received 384 revised manuscripts. Fifty-four percent were accepted on first revision, while 6% were reject-ed.
Revisions undergo more extensive pre-review check-ing. In addition to routine formatting issues, authors are asked to address plagiarism, reference accuracy, registry compliance, and figure manipulation.
All clinical and most basic science revisions are then reviewed by the biostatistician, and subeditors are given the chance to re-review papers.
As seen at left, increased editorial attention does not adversely affect turnaround times. First revisions receive decisions within 17 days, and second revisions are reviewed in 11-12 days.
Author turnaround time for first decision is cur-rently 55 days. Second revisions are returned within 36 days; further revisions in 2015 have been submitted within three weeks of decision.
Editorial Turnaround Overall, editorial processing times remain stable. As in previous years, initial submissions spend 1.3 days with editorial staff before undergoing evaluation by the editor. Once received, the editor assigns first reviewers within 4.7 days. These times are slightly longer than in previous years, but not significant (e.g. 4 days to reviewer assignment in 2014).
Accept 12 days 20 days
Provisional Accept 25 days 43 days
Major Revision 25 days 45 days
Marginal 30 days 33 days
Editorial Reject 3 days 3 days
Reject 25 days 32 days
Avg time to all decisions 20 days 29 days
Avg revision decision only 27 days 40 days
Editor DecisionAverage Time to
Decision in 2014
Average Time to
Decision in 2015
Accept 14 days 8 days
Provisional Accept 16 days 10 days
Major Revision 16 days 14 days
Marginal 24 days 13 days
Reject 17 days 15 days
Average 17 days 12 days
Editor Decision1st Revision
Avg Time to Decision
2nd Revision
Avg Time to Decision
2013 2014 2015*
New manuscripts submitted 1326 1288 893
Revisions requested 523 584 379
Revisions submitted** 466 542 384
Total submissions rec'd (new and revision) 1792 1830 1277* Year-to-date as of September 7, 2015
** Total received is independent of when revision requested (i.e. requested in 2014, filed in 2015).
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Production
Production Turnaround
Last year, we published 541 editorial items. This rate of production establishes the Journal as on e of the largest titles in surgery (c.f. the Journal is 82% larger than JAMA Surgery, which published 297 items in 2014). Despite the high vol-ume, the Journal maintains acceptable times for online and print production.
For a more informative comparison, we calculated averages for papers in production from January to September in 2014 and 2015. We found that, although time from final revision to acceptance has slowed, time to publication re-mains stable (6.5 months for both time periods). Acceptance to arrival in production times have been affected by the implementation of electronic copyright transfer forms. The onus is now on authors to remind coauthors to fill out electronic forms if not complete at acceptance. Full-year averages for time to print are confounded by WTA papers — more than half publish online months before printing. Overall, however, only a minority of papers publish online before print (29 mss in table above).
Print & Page Usage Print and online publication times remain excel-lent.
Technical production of issues for 2015 (i.e. proofing and implementing final changes by edito-rial office) continues to occur over a 10-day period.
Production start dates occurred later this year (4– 7 days past schedule). This has not impacted final publication.
Regarding page usage, the Journal is well within page budgets. We are allotted 3,250 print pages and 550 online pages in 2015. Last year’s page count ended well below budget (2531 out of a budgeted 3350). As of September, we have produced 1,977 typeset pages. The average issue size will increase in November, as noted in the previous section on Journal Content.
Per the AAST publishing contract, free color up to 20 pages per issue is being applied at the discretion of the editor. As of Sep-tember 2015, 114 pages have received color.
Production Processing Times Jan-Dec 2013 Jan-Dec 2014 Jan-Sept 2015
Submission of original manuscript to acceptance 2.4 months 2.6 months 3.3 months
Submission of last revision to acceptance 4 days 6.4 days 11 days
Acceptance to arrival in production 2 days 8 days 23 days
Arrival in production to creation of proofs 35 days 31 days 32 days
Arrival in production to online publication 3.7 months 4.1 months 3.1 months
Online publication to appearance in print issue 17 days 2.4 months 1.7 months
Overall time: acceptance to print publication 4.2 months 7.2 months 6.5 months
78 1 1/5/2015 1/5/2015 0 280 221 -59
78 2 2/3/2015 1/27/2015 5 280 240 -40
78 3 3/3/2015 3/3/2015 0 280 218 -62
78 4 4/1/2015 3/30/2015 3 270 243 -27
78 5 5/4/2015 4/27/2015 6 270 180 -90
78 6 6/2/2015 5/29/2015 4 270 170 -100
79 1 7/1/2015 6/23/2015 7 270 178 -92
79 2 8/4/2015 8/4/2015 0 265 155 -110
79 3 9/2/2015 9/2/2015 0 265 186 -79
79 4 10/1/2015 265 186 -79
79 5 11/3/2015 265
79 6 12/5/2015 270
TOTAL 3250 1977
Print Publication Dates & Page Usage 2015
Volume IssueScheduled
Pub Date
Actual Pub
Date
Difference
(bus. days)
Budgeted
Pages
Actual
PagesDifference
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
January 266 318 359 254 221
February 259 332 368 305 240
March 241 320 252 345 218
April 249 255 238 262 243
May 287 231 204 172 180
June 297 289 233 173 170
July 273 299 195 192 178
August 246 237 177 200 155
September 264 249 192 134 186
October 309 250 217 126 186
November 383 284 182 158
December 459 289 174 210
Annual print total 3533 3353 2791 2531 1977
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Reviewers
Reviewer Productivity
In 2014, the Journal commissioned a total of 1864 reviews, of which 1191 were completed on time. These were written by 409 unique review-ers. In 2015, 596 reviews have been filed by 312 re-viewers. Overall, 480 reviews have been com-pleted within the allotted 14 days (i.e. 81% of reviews are timely, which is an increase over the previous two years’ average of 64%). Reviewers currently respond to invitations to review within 2.5 days, and take an average of 13 days to file their reviews. The most productive reviewers of 2014 can be found above (all are editorial board members; supplement reviewers are not included). The most productive reviewers of 2015 are listed below.
Reviewer Recognition
As in previous years, all reviewers will be publicly thanked in the December 2015 issue for their efforts. The most productive reviewers will receive special recognition for their service to the Journal. In early 2016, when a full year of reviewer statistics are available, the editors will also identify the most valua-ble reviewer of 2015. This reviewer will receive the Journal’s first award. The award will be named after Dr. Norman McSwain, who long served as the Journal’s most prolific reviewer. The winning reviewer will receive a plaque and profile on the web site.
Finally, the editors have entered into an agreement with Publons, a free resource that provides peer reviewers with a way to get credit for their contributions (without affecting anonymity) in a format amenable to CVs and funding applica-tions.
The editorial office will verify any reviews submitted. Register a profile at publons.com to get started.
2015 Most Productive Reviewers
First Name Last NameCompleted
Reviews
Submitted
on Time
Submitted
Late
Avg Days
Late
Avg Rev
Rating
Clay Burlew 11 11 0 -5 87.27
Martin Schreiber 11 11 0 -14 86.5
Megan Brenner 9 9 0 -9 92.14
Alex Valadka 8 8 0 -3 85.29
Howard Champion 7 7 0 -7 94.67
James Davis 7 7 0 -9 86.67
Charles Wade 7 6 1 -5 94
Karen Brasel 6 6 0 -7 88
Eileen Bulger 6 5 1 0 85.6
Mitchell Cohen 6 2 4 3 92
Kenji Inaba 6 6 0 -14 92.5
Joseph Minei 6 4 2 0 86.25
Michael Rotondo 6 4 2 1 89.67
David Spain 6 5 1 -7 85
Jason Sperry 6 5 1 -5 88.33
Rochelle Dicker 6 6 0 -9 92
Nicholas Namias 6 6 0 -4 87.5
Denis Bensard 5 5 0 -7 95
Walter Biffl 5 3 2 1 85
John Holcomb 5 3 2 0 83.75
Rosemary Kozar 5 5 0 -5 91
Philip Stahel 5 1 4 4 91.25
Donald Marion 5 5 0 -12 83.33
Dr. Norman
McSwain, jR
Outstanding
Reviewer Service
2014 Most Productive Reviewers
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Editorial Board
Editorial Board
In January 2015, four new members were added to the editorial board and three were removed. Below please find cita-tion and publication metrics for the latest additions to the 2015 board. To arrive at this list, we identified 15 candidates based on their performance as reviewers. Gross publication and cita-tion metrics were then analyzed for shortlisted candidates. We then gathered citation data specific to the Journal. In this way, we were able to refine the list to those who have demonstrated exceptional service and interest. In light of the latest round of editorial board selection, we have modified criteria to join. Previously, minimal criteria in-cluded an h-index of 15 and publication of at least two peer-reviewed trauma articles within the past three years. This year, the minimum h-index for candidates has been raised to 20. Editorial board member candidates must also show evidence of active publication in trauma — preferably 10 publications within the previous two years.
Thomson Reuters released journal impact factors (IFs) in June 2015. The Journal’s IF has risen to 2.736. As before, the title is no longer included in the emergency medicine category. The Journal retains its general place in surgery and critical care medicine categories.
Criteria for Editorial Board Membership
1. AAST membership
2. h-index ≥ 20
3. Publication of least 10 peer-reviewed
papers in previous two years.
Name InstitutionTotal publications
(as in PubMed)
Total citable pubs
(as in Web of Science)
Total recent pubs
(2012-2014)
Total
citationsH-index
Adil H. Haider Brigham & Women's Hosp 115 190 100 1627 20
Elliott R. Haut Johns Hopkins Medicine 137 158 82 1379 20
Matthew J. Martin Madigan Army Medical can't disambinguate 104 19 1731 21
Deborah M. Stein U of Maryland Medicine 113 133 37 1968 26
NameTotal publications in JT
(1974-2011)
Total cites made to
author's JT work
Recent publications in JTACS
(2012-2014)
Cites to recent JTACS work
(2012-2014)
Adil H. Haider 22 510 20 55
Elliott R. Haut 32 602 15 27
Matthew J. Martin 34 906 7 17
Deborah M. Stein 26 491 12 13
Impact Factor
YearImpact Factor
(IF)
ISI Rank ‒
Critical Care
Medicine
ISI Rank ‒
Sugery
ISI Rank ‒
Emergency
Medicine
2014 2.736 10/27 44/198 -
2013* 2.465 13/27 44/202 -
2012 2.348 15/27 49/198 4/24
2011 2.478 12/26 44/198 4/21
2010 3.129 8/23 22/188 -
5-Year IF 2.746
2009 2.626 9/22 30/167 -
2008 2.342 9/21 34/148 -
2007 2.334 9/18 28/139 -*2013 IF is a composite created from one-year data for J Trauma and J Trauma Acute Care Surg.
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Impact Factor
2014 Impact Factor Calculation
Impact factor represents the average number of citations accrued in one year to recent content in a journal. As seen below, the gross number of citations received in 2014 is good. Cites in 2014 to articles published in: Number of citable articles published in: 2013 = 1015 2013 = 428 2012 = 1746 2012 = 581 ’12 + ’13 = 2761 ’12 + ’13 = 1009 The relatively modest gain in impact factor is due to the volume of the Journal. More citable articles in the denomina-tor generally dilute the effect of robust citations. For this reason, many highly-ranked (by IF) surgical journals publish 150-250 articles per year. The Journal, however, has always been a high-volume specialty publication. In order to serve as a comprehensive platform for the acute care surgical community, the editorial team does not plan to artificially reduce number of published articles for IF gain.
This year marks the first in which we can evaluate the effects of editorial policy in 2012 on citation patterns. When the editorial operations transitioned in 2012, one of our first goals included understanding broad citation patterns in surgery. Upon analyzing data for the top quartile of surgical journals, we found that citations in surgery generally peak 3-4 years after publication. For subspecialties, citation peaks may occur 4-5 years post-publication. So, despite the ubiquity of impact factor, two-year windows are insufficient to truly evaluate “impact” in acute care surgery. With three complete years of citation behavior, we can begin to see and evaluate citation dynamics. As seen in the table below, we started by examining performance of society and supplement papers, as illustrated by citations garnered to date (September 6, 2015).
Citation benefit is defined here as a relationship between space used (number of specialty articles/total articles published) and citations garnered (similarly calculated as a ratio — cites to specialty articles : cites to all articles published in 2012). This is a essentially a metric used to determine whether pages were allocated well. Overall, we are gratified to see that affiliate society papers and supplements are being referenced at a good rate.
Cites to recent articles
Number of recent articles =2.736 2761
1009
Total Cites 2012 2013 2014 2015 YTD
Ann Surg 6839 364 1876 2840 1759
JTACS 4191 167 1207 1806 1011
J Vasc Surg 4092 317 1261 1605 909
Br J Surg 3885 220 1157 1547 961
JACS 2981 166 839 1209 767
JAMA Surg 1712 185 492 658 377
Journal Citation Counts to 2012 Articles
Citation data as of September 6, 2015.
Citation Analysis
% Published
(space used overall)
% Citations Received
(year total = 3272)
AAST 12.5% 11.0%
EAST 8.0% 8.0%
WTA 7.4% 8.0%
Supplement 9.7% 15.6%
Key: Citation Benefit
Citation Neutral
Citation Deficit
2012
12
AAST Member Submission Rate
As noted in Journal Content (p. 5), 33% of AAST members currently contribute to the Journal. This third of the member-ship accounts for 44% of all submissions.
AAST Contribution Rate
We also cross listed the AAST’s membership list with all listed authors on submissions received from 2014 to 2015. As illustrated at right, 33% of members were coauthors on received papers.
AAST Member Acceptance Rate
For AAST member-authored submissions, the cur-rent rejection rate is 64% (lower than that for inde-pendent submissions).
As AAST member-authored papers enjoy a higher acceptance rate, the editors hope that a greater pro-portion of the membership will actively contribute in future years.
AAST Citation Rate
We are also tracking the never-cited rate for papers publishing in the Journal. For 2012, 30% of published papers have not been cited; the never-cited rate for 2013 publications is 23%. We aim to lower the never-cited number by directing more attention to fewer papers. This is another motivator behind giving authors the bene-fit of rigorous biostatistical review and expanded space to report studies.
AAST Member Submissions, 2014-2015
AAST Member Acceptance Rates, 2014-2015
Never Cited 2012
(% of 211 papers)
AAST 14%
EAST 12%
WTA 5%
Supplement 3%
Citation Analysis
13
Citation Analysis
Citation Rates The Journal’s h-index for content that published in 2012 and 2013 — the two years contributing to latest impact factor — is currently 24. H-index is the largest number h such that at least h articles in that publication were cited at least h times each. That is, in the two years examined, we published 24 articles that have already garnered 24 citations or more. Below, please see the full list of top-cited articles.
Title Authors Pub Date Times Cited
Death on the battlefield (2001-2011): Implications for the future of combat
casualty careEastridge et al December 2012 137
Persistent inflammation and immunosuppression: A common syndrome and
new horizon for surgical intensive careGentile et al June 2012 68
Hyperfibrinolysis at admission is an uncommon but highly lethal event
associated with shock and prehospital fluid administrationCotton et al August 2012 53
Characterization of platelet dysfunction after trauma Kutcher et al July 2012 49
The immune response to surgery and trauma: Implications for treatment Marik et al October 2012 45
Endothelial glycocalyx degradation induces endogenous heparinization in
patients with severe injury and early traumatic coagulopathyOstrowski et al July 2012 43
Are the frail destined to fail? Frailty index as predictor of surgical morbidity and
mortality in the elderlyFarhat et al June 2012 36
Selective nonoperative management of blunt splenic injury: An Eastern
Association for the Surgery of Trauma practice management guidelineStassen et al November 2012 31
Serum levels of ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase distinguish mild traumatic brain
injury from trauma controls and are elevated in mild and moderate traumatic
brain injury patients with intracranial lesions and neurosurgical intervention
Papa et al May 2012 31
Crystalloid to packed red blood cell transfusion ratio in the massively transfused
patient: When a little goes a long wayNeal et al April 2012 31
Fibrinolysis greater than 3% is the critical value for initiation of antifibrinolytic
therapyChapman et al December 2013 29
Debunking the survival bias myth: Characterization of mortality during the initial
24 hours for patients requiring massive transfusionBrown et al August 2012 29
Combat wounds in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2005 to 2009 Belmont et al July 2012 29
Recombinant human soluble thrombomodulin improves mortality and
respiratory dysfunction in patients with severe sepsisOgawa et al May 2012 29
Admission rapid thrombelastography predicts development of pulmonary
embolism in trauma patientsCotton et al June 2012 28
Factor IX complex for the correction of traumatic coagulopathy Joseph et al April 2012 28
A clinical series of resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta for
hemorrhage control and resuscitationBrenner et al September 2013 27
Battlefield trauma care then and now: A decade of Tactical Combat Casualty Care Butler et al December 2012 27
High circulating adrenaline levels at admission predict increased mortality after
traumaJohansson et al February 2012 27
Four serum microRNAs identified as diagnostic biomarkers of sepsis Wang et al October 2012 26
Clinical and mechanistic drivers of acute traumatic coagulopathy Cohen et al July 2013 25
Ten-year analysis of transfusion in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation
Enduring Freedom: Increased plasma and platelet use correlates with improved
survival
Pidcoke et al December 2012 25
TEG-guided resuscitation is superior to standardized MTP resuscitation in
massively transfused penetrating trauma patientsTapia et al February 2013 24
Nonoperative management of blunt hepatic injury: An Eastern Association for
the Surgery of Trauma practice management guidelineStassen et al November 2012 24
Utility of platelet transfusion in adult patients with traumatic intracranial
hemorrhage and preinjury antiplatelet use: A systematic reviewNishijima et al June 2012 24
Ten years at war: Comprehensive analysis of amputation trends Krueger et al December 2012 23
Criteria for empiric treatment of hyperfibrinolysis after trauma Kutcher et al July 2012 23
The mortality benefit of direct trauma center transport in a regional trauma
system: A population-based analysisHaas et al June 2012 23
Changes in massive transfusion over time: An early shift in the right direction? Kautza et al January 2012 23
Tranexamic acid in trauma: How should we use it? Napolitano et al June 2013 22
Top Cited Articles 2012-2013 (Thomson Reuters Web of Science, 7 September 2015)
In the same period, content in other surgical journals have the following h-indices:
Ann Surg: 44 Crit Care Med: 38
Br J Surg: 32 Injury: 20 Shock: 20
JAMA Surg: 15
As may be surmised, con-tent analysis by h-index reveals that every journal depends on a small number of papers attracting a large number of citations. Most articles in high-impact factor surgical journals are cited infrequently. Across the journals above for 2012-13, we found that up to 45% published articles are never cited at all. The rate of 45% never-cited is somewhat high among disciplines. Generally, cita-tions follow a Pareto-like distribution pattern, known in bibliometrics as Brad-ford’s Law. Generally, we expect up to a third of publi-cations to attract nearly all citations.
Likewise, normal citation patterns also include up to a third of never-cited papers. The Journal’s rate of 30% never-cited is closer to the norm. Please see Appendix III for a full list of uncited papers that published in 2012. Early returns in citation dynamics are sometimes anomalous, but for completeness we’ve also included the top-cited articles of 2014-2015 in Appendix IV.
14
Citations Per Document The Journal’s citation-per-document rate history can be found at right. Pending determination of the Journal’s peak for current citation dynamics, data points were captured for three time win-dows: citations received within 2, 3, and 4 years. As detailed in the table below, in 2013, we reached our highest rate of 2.71 cites per article published within two years. The Journal’s peak citations-per-document rate for 3- and 4-year time periods occurred last year.
“Citable” Articles
Not all articles are considered primary re-search and therefore "count," at least in terms of impact factor. The chart at left shows the ratio of the Jour-nal’s articles considered citable (original arti-cles and reviews) in three-year windows. Source data and percentages for citable con-tent with respect to all content can be found in the table below.
As reported in 2012, we have made a concerted effort to increase article type diversity (i.e. encourage non-research articles, such as opinions, special reports, etc). This was prompted by looking at the top-cited journals in surgery, which, on average, publish 50% of citable work annually. Gains in increasing diversity of content in the Journal have modest and we are down to publishing 79% citable, 11% non-citable content.
Citation Analysis
Citations per Document, 1999-2014
Citable Content, 1999-2013
2013
RankJournal
Avg #
published
per month
Percent
citable
1 Ann Surg 34 68%
2 Am J Transplant 190 14%
3 Endoscopy 31 39%
4 J Neurol Neurosur PS 48 40%
5 Brit J Surg 88 20%
6 J Am Coll Surgeons 48 38%
7 Arch Surg 26 46%
8 Am J Surg Pathol 21 87%
9 Ann Surg Oncol 83 47%
10 Surg Endosc 46 87%
% Citable Content Top-Ranked Journals 2008-2013
15
Self-Citation Rate For many reasons, it is beneficial to keep self citations (i.e. citations within the Journal to its own content) low. We don’t prohibit self-citation, but do our best to reduce unnecessary self-promotion. To that end, we redact re-dundant references from letters to the editor and con-vert any editorial critique references to in-text citations. The chart at left illustrates that efforts are moderately effective. Self-citation is down, but not to the degree it was 10-15 years ago.
Citation Analysis
International Coauthorship
Despite the drop in globally based submissions noted in Submission Demographics above, the Journal is now publishing a higher proportion of international manuscripts (i.e. papers with one or more authors affiliated abroad).
The data collected above illustrates the rate of international authorship on all articles published 1999-2014. As above, international” here means more than one listed coauthor affiliated outside of North America. The Journal’s rate of publishing international content at 9.52% last year sounds modest. However, in comparison with other surgical journals, this is a relatively high ratio. Below is a full a chart comparing full international authorship histories (1999-present) for JACS and the Journal. Last year, the international authorship rate for JACS was 4.3%.
9.52%
Internationally Authored Publications JACS v. JTACS, 1999-2014
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
4.12% 2.22% 4.82% 0.73% 4.29% 5.42% 4.86% 3.58%
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
6.26% 9.18% 4.68% 7.29% 9.19% 7.00% 8.95% 9.52%
International Publications
(% of total content/year)
Citation vs. Self-Citation, 1999-2014
16
Alternative Metrics
Google Scholar The Journal continues to rank highly by Google Scholar’s journal metric. The Google Scholar metric uses publicly acces-sible citation data. As seen at right, the algo-rithm ranks all surgical journals (n >200) in terms of average and median h-indices. Rank-ings are updated regularly and the top 20 jour-nals are displayed online. The Journal is currently ranked #8 out of the 20 surgical publications. This represents a slight drop from September 2014, when we ranked #7. Currently, an average of 56 articles that pub-lished over the past five years have been cited at least 56 times. If the list was sorted by medi-an h5, the Journal would rank ninth overall.
SNIP, IPP, & SJR Other metrics to quantify impact and journal health are increasingly used as an alternative to impact factor. Below is the Journal’s historical performance according to three related metrics developed by Elsevier and Leiden University:
Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) measures impact by weighting citations based on the total number of citations in a subject field. New SNIP scores are calculated whenever two full years of citation data are available. Impact per Publication (IPP) measures the ratio of citations per article pub-lished in a journal. The IPP is calculated by dividing citations to papers published in the three previous years by the num-ber of papers published in those same years. The Journal is currently experienc-ing the highest IPP upswing it its history. Finally, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) is
a prestige metric that assigns relative scores to all of the sources in a citation network. A citation from a journal with a high SJR is worth more than a citation from a source with a lower SJR. As seen above, the Journal in 2013 started re-ceiving citations from highly regarded publications, thus increasing its SJR.
Rank Publication h5-index h5-median
1 Annals of Surgery 91 126
2 Journal of Vascular Surgery 80 129
3 Annals of Surgical Oncology 74 98
4 Surgical Endoscopy 73 109
5 British Journal of Surgery 70 90
6 Journal of the American College of Surgeons 67 83
7 Archives of Surgery 57 80
8 Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery 56 72
9 Obesity Surgery 55 74
10 World Journal of Surgery 55 68
11 Surgery 51 68
12 Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery 49 65
13 European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery 47 62
14 The American Journal of Surgery 47 60
15 Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases 46 62
16 Journal of Surgical Research 46 56
17 Journal of Surgical Oncology 45 60
18 European Journal of Surgical Oncology (EJSO) 44 50
19 Journal of Endourology 42 60
20 Journal of Hepato-Biliary-Pancreatic Sciences 40 51
2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999
SNIP 1.454 1.409 1.126 0.896 1.035 1.182 1.309 1.259 1.403 1.512 1.397 1.286 1.342 1.426 1.307 1.421
IPP 2.538 2.453 1.934 1.5 1.58 1.828 2.001 2.037 2.094 2.014 1.945 1.718 1.696 1.78 1.556 1.602
SJR 1.282 1.371 1.012 0.894 1.024 1.137 1.073 1.068 1.122 1.043 0.919 0.787 0.983 0.987 0.923 0.892
Google Scholar Surgery Rank (as of September 6, 2015)
17
Social Authority We continue to maintain an engaging online presence, as evidenced by various altmetrics (i.e. total number of arti-cle views, downloads, media coverage, and social media mentions). Currently, we have 5,082 followers on Twitter. This repre-sents a 136% increase from when we started actively curating the Journal’s Twitter feed in April 2014.. Among surgical journals, our social media ranking is very good (see table below). As of writing, the Journal main-tains a social authority score of 50 — among surgical jour-nals, this is second only to JAMA Surgery, which joined Twitter two years earlier.
Altmetrics The Social Authority ranking is encouraging, but online attention does not end with Twitter. “Social media” refers to the complex of blogs, platforms like Facebook, and networks like Mendeley and Research Gate. To track activity throughout the online universe, we must look at article-level metrics. In August of this year, the Journal’s publisher incorporated a tool that tracks online engagement at the article level. As of writing, Altmetric — the third-party company that developed the web site API — has tracked 1,612 articles from the Journal. Altmetrics can be accessed for any paper published since October 2011. To view metrics for individual articles, readers may click on the altmetrics “donut” icon placed to the right of every HTML paper or abstract. This will open up a screen where real-time activity across platforms is reported. At right is a screenshot of the most popular article of the September issue so far, Oyler et al’s review on nonopioid management of pain in trauma. Papers typically receive moderate attention, with a mean score of 5.0. This is an increase from April 2015, when content pulled a score of 4.4 (cf. global average for all peer-reviewed publications is 4.9).
The top-ranked paper is an EAST PMG by Dr. Mayur Patel et al, “Cervical spine collar clearance in the obtunded adult blunt trauma patient…,” which published in February 2015. Altmetric has tracked more than 4 million articles across all publications; this PMG is currently in the top 5% of all works ever tracked. We have found that regular promotion of free content (both open access and editor’s choice articles) drives traffic. EAST’s recently inaugurated journal club also results in increased altmetric scores. With all this in mind, we will ramp up efforts to increase visibility of articles online and continue to actively curate discussions. For comparisons of social media analytics, please see Appendix V.
Alternative Metrics
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In 2015, the Journal was selected to join a group of 200 curated journals covered by the New England Journal of Medicine’s Journal Watch. In exchange for coverage on their site, Journal content is provided on an as-requested basis to NEJM Journal Watch editors. Article summaries (and sometimes critiques) are written by authors invited by NEJM Journal Watch. NEJM editors are par-ticularly interested in multi-institutional trials, guidelines, and evidence-based reviews.
In
2015, three supplements will publish. Peer review of all supplement manuscripts was accomplished concurrently — credit is due to Drs. Steven Shackford, Todd Rasmussen, Joseph Tepas, and Joseph Rappold for managing smooth and stringent peer review processes. The Trauma Hemostasis and Oxygenation Network (THOR) supplement published in June 2015, in time for the group’s annual meeting. The Injury Free Coalition for Kids supplement went live online last week, and is currently mailing alongside the September 2015 issue. The Military Health Systems Research Symposium (MHSRS) supplement is in final production, and will publish next month. For 2016 publication, one supplement proposal for the proceedings of the 2015 MHSRS meeting is currently under review.
Media
Supplements
The popular press has relied on the Journal primarily for back-ground material this year, usually in the wake of US shoot-ings. In addition to passive media relations, we provide Tables of Contents to a curated group of 58 news desk editors monthly. Most significantly, the Journal now has a relationship with The Guardian’s features desk. Two articles referencing Journal content have published this year. Other news outlets report-ing on our authors’ work include the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, Huffington Post, and ABC News.
19
Open Access Collection As a service to authors and readers, we have created a new topical col-lection to house hybrid open access articles. This provides readers with a “one-stop shop” in which to find freely accessible content. The only limitation is that articles publishing open access ahead of print cannot be assigned to the collection. To remedy, we alert readers via social media networks within hours of online publication. This effort has already resulted in early reader traffic to the Journal’s most recent OA article — Dr. Jan Jansen et al’s geographical optimization of trauma center configuration, which published late last week.
Storify
Storify is a service that gives users the ability to create stories or timelines comprised of material from Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and Google. Storify posts are especially well-suited to organizing events with multiple sources or asynchronous posts. In January 2015, the Journal launched a Storify channel with a simple post — an aggregation of the top Tweets of 2014. Since then, Storify has been used to compile coverage of the West-ern Trauma Association meeting and the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma’s Journal Club.
EAST Journal Club Support
The editorial office has been delighted to participate in EAST’s online Journal Club. These Twitter-based events are held over two days, during which senior authors of selected works field questions directly from readers. All events have been moderated by Dr. Christian Jones. With the generous support of our publisher, selected articles are made freely available to readers for the weeks leading up to and dur-ing an event. Articles are tagged with an “EAST Journal Club” icon, and the event itself is publicized in a news box on jtrauma.com. All Journal Clubs to date have featured EAST 2015 plenary papers. The first event fea-tured Dr. David King discussing his intra-abdominal foam dose confirmation study. The second event saw Dr. Adil Haider comment on his team’s cost analysis of delay to laparoscopic cholecystectomy/ This month, a third event will take place September 21-22, and feature Dr. Bryce Robin-son discussing his work to define point-of-care testing for traumatic coagulopathy
Online Educational Content
20
AAST Grand Rounds AAST Grand Rounds and webinars are both available at jtrau-ma.com. Each video is annotated with links to Journal content — all references by the speaker are captured, and recommenda-tions for further reading care are compiled. The increased frequency of broadcasts in 2015 prompted the editorial office to look into alternative methods of posting con-tent. Previously, documents containing metadata and links were transferred to LWW; their web team then created the resulting page. This took up to 4 weeks. To streamline the process, the editorial office now composes updates natively in HTML. Coding in-house and then asking LWW to “flip the switch” to go live has worked well. Updates can now be made 2-5 days after a live event.
Panamerican Grand Rounds
In March 2015, a representative of the Panamerican Trau-ma Society pitched the idea of providing the society’s tele-vised grand rounds to the Journal. After auditing a live ses-sion, the editors agreed that the content would fit well online. Panamerican Grand Rounds generally feature a speaker, a moderator, and a panel of active discussants drawn from throughout the world. A case is presented and attendees are invited to comment on operative decision making and techniques. The result is an hour-long, in-depth discussion featuring diverse viewpoints. In terms of design, Panamerican Grand Rounds will be modeled on pages created for AAST webinars — pages will contain a video, speaker information, and links to further reading found in the Journal archive. Linkouts to the society web site for video-associated CME activities will also be provided. One test page was made in March 2015. We will go live with the feature once AAST BOM approval is received and a sufficient backlog of material is banked. Thereafter, up-dates will occur weekly at jtrauma.com.
Online Educational Content
21
Benchmarks
Over the past eight months, the Journal has radically restructured its peer review processes. Workflow has changed from a single-tier (editor-in-chief only) to a multilevel system (editor-in-chief > associate editors > biostatistician). More agents in the system and nested levels of review improve quality, but at a time cost. In April 2015, we proposed revising several benchmarks:
2012 Goal Current averages 2015 Goal (as of 9/7/2015) (revised)
Time from submission to reviewer assignment: < 14 days 6 days no change
Time from submission to first decision: < 31 days 29 days (all mss) < 40 days (all) 29 days (research only) < 50 days (research)
Time from revision receipt to reviewer assignment: < 7 days 0.7 days no change
Time from revision submission to final decision: < 7 days 17 days (1st revision) < 30 days 12 days (2nd revision) 7 days (3rd revision) 1.5 days (4th revision)
Expedited publication of AAST papers: 77 mss published 78(1-6) & 79(1-5)
Dedicated issues for EAST and WTA meeting papers: EAST published in 79(1) WTA set for 79(6)
The editorial team welcomes Board suggestions on setting additional performance goals.
Publishing:
Wolters Kluwer/LWW 351 West Camden Street Baltimore, MD 21201 Tel: 410-528-4088 John Ewers, Senior Publisher Tel: 410-528-4088 [email protected] Dinah Elashvili, Production Editor [email protected] Tom Pitofsky, Advertising Sales Tel: 661-296-8213 [email protected] Silvia Serra, Translation & Rights [email protected]
Contacts
Editorial:
Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery 655 Broadway, Suite 365 Denver, CO 80203 Ernest E. Moore, MD, Editor Tel: 303-602-1820 [email protected] Angela Sauaia, MD, PhD, Statistical Editor Tel: 303-602-1819 [email protected] Jennifer Crebs, Managing Editor Tel: 303-6052-1816 [email protected] Jo Fields, Assistant Editor Tel: 303-6052-1815 [email protected]
22
Appendix I: AAST Papers in 2015
Corresponding Author
Article Title Type/Article
Header Vol Iss
Peitzman Acute cholecystitis: When to operate and how to do it safely 2014 Master Surgeon
78 1
Jordan A protocol for the management of adhesive small bowel obstruc-tion
2014 Plenary 78 1
Cannon Clearly defining pediatric massive transfusion: cutting through the fog and friction with combat data
2014 Plenary 78 1
Kornblith Obesity and clotting: BMI independently contributes to hypercoag-ulability after injury
2014 Plenary 78 1
Zander Does resuscitation with plasma increase the risk of venous throm-boembolism?
2014 Plenary 78 1
Garcia Damage control techniques in the management of severe lung trauma
2014 Plenary 78 1
Costantini A pharmacologic approach to vagal nerve stimulation prevents mesenteric lymph toxicity after hemorrhagic shock
2014 Plenary 78 1
Santry Variations in implementation of acute care surgery: Results from a national survey of university-affiliated hospitals
2014 Plenary 78 1
Haider Outcomes after emergency general surgery at teaching versus non-teaching hospitals
2014 Plenary 78 1
Hemmila Regional collaborative quality improvement for trauma reduces complications and costs
2014 Plenary 78 1
Galante The modern acute care surgeon: characterization of an evolving surgical niche
2014 Poster 78 1
Davis Refining the operative curriculum of the acute care surgery fellow-ship
Special Report of the AAST ACS Committee
78 1
DuBose The AAST Prospective Observational Vascular Injury Treatment (PROOVIT) Registry: Multicenter data on modern vascular injury diagnosis, management and outcomes
2014 Plenary 78 2
Savage The new metric to define large-volume hemorrhage: results of a prospective study of the critical administration threshold
2014 Plenary 78 2
McCully Reconstitution fluid type does not affect pulmonary inflammation or DNA damage following infusion of lyophilized plasma
2014 Plenary 78 2
23
Corresponding Author
Article Title Type/Article
Header Vol Iss
Davies Lung Protective Ventilation (ARDSNet) versus APRV: Ventilatory management in a combined model of acute lung and brain injury
2014 Plenary 78 2
Juillard Saving lives and saving money: Hospital based violence interven-tion is cost effective
2014 Plenary 78 2
Duane Defining the acute care surgery curriculum 2014 Plenary 78 2
Kaafarani The impact and sustainability of the graduated driver licensing program in preventing motor vehicle crashes in Massachusetts
2014 Plenary 78 2
Hauser Mitochondrial DAMPs from fractures suppress pulmonary immune responses via formyl peptide receptors 1 and 2
2014 Plenary 78 2
Havens The excess morbidity and mortality of emergency general surgery 2014 Quick Shot 78 2
Shrestha Damage control resuscitation increases successful non-operative management rates and survival after severe blunt liver injury
2013 Poster 78 2
Brown Systolic blood pressure criteria in the National Trauma Triage Pro-tocol for geriatric trauma: 110 is the new 90
2014 Poster 78 2
DuBose Contemporary management and outcomes of blunt thoracic aortic injury: a multicenter retrospective study
2014 Quick Shot 78 2
Benns Does chest tube location matter? An analysis of chest tube posi-tion and the need for secondary interventions
2014 Poster 78 2
Kugler Natural history of a post pull pneumothorax or effusion: observa-tion is safe
2014 Poster 78 2
Sperry Hospital acquired pneumonia is an independent predictor of poor global outcome in severe traumatic brain injury up to 5 years after discharge
2014 Poster 78 2
Rogers An analysis of geriatric recidivism in the era of accountable care organizations
2014 Poster 78 2
Petro POSTERIOR COMPONENT SEPARATION AND TRANSVERSUS AB-DOMINIS MUSCLE RELEASE FOR COMPLEX INCISIONAL HERNIA REPAIR IN PATIENTS WITH A HISTORY OF AN OPEN ABDOMEN
2014 Poster 78 3
Sperry THE EARLY EVOLVING SEX HORMONE ENVIRONMENT IS ASSOCIAT-ED WITH SIGNIFICANT OUTCOME AND INFLAMMATORY RESPONSE DIFFERENCES POST-INJURY
2014 Plenary 78 3
Inaba Prospective Derivation of a Clinical Decision Rule for Thoracolum-bar Spine Evaluation After Blunt Trauma - An AAST Multi-Institutional Trials Group Study
2014 Plenary 78 3
Appendix I: AAST Papers in 2015
24
Corresponding Author
Article Title Type/Article
Header Vol Iss
Sharpe Adherence to an Established Diagnostic Threshold for Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia Contributes to Low False-Negative Rates in Trauma Patients
2014 Plenary 78 3
Coimbra Can we ever stop worrying about venous thromboembolism after trauma?
2014 Plenary 78 3
Haider National estimates of predictors of outcomes for emergency gen-eral surgery
2014 Plenary 78 3
Dawes Intracranial pressure monitoring and inpatient mortality in severe traumatic brain injury: a propensity-score matched analysis
2014 Plenary 78 3
Wild Same-day combined ERCP and cholecystectomy: Achievable and minimizes costs
2014 Plenary 78 3
Proctor Risk of pulmonary embolism with repair or ligation of major ve-nous injury following penetrating trauma
2014 Quick Shot 78 3
King Tourniquet use at the Boston Marathon bombing: lost in transla-tion
2014 Poster 78 3
King Diagnosis and deployment of a self-expanding foam for abdominal exsanguination: translational questions for human use
2014 Poster 78 3
Cioffi AAST 2014 Presidential Address: Responsibility 2014 Presidential Address
78 4
Tompkins Genomics of Injury: The Glue Grant Experience 2014 Fitts Ora-tion
78 4
Schreiber A controlled resuscitation strategy is feasible and safe in hypoten-sive trauma patients: results of a prospective randomized pilot trial
2014 Plenary 78 4
Joseph Reducing secondary brain injury in trauma patients: the effects of remote ischemic conditioning
2014 Plenary 78 4
Ashley An analysis of the effectiveness of a state trauma system: Treat-ment at designated trauma centers is associated with an increased probability of survival
2014 Plenary 78 4
Rhee Early autologous fresh whole blood transfusion leads to less al-logeneic transfusions and is safe
2014 Quick Shot 78 4
Sifri Can mesenchymal stem cells reverse chronic stress-induced im-pairment of wound healing following traumatic injury?
2014 Quick Shot 78 4
Miller Feasibility of screening for pre-injury frailty in hospitalized injured older adults
2014 Poster 78 4
Appendix I: AAST Papers in 2015
25
Corresponding Author
Article Title Type/Article
Header Vol Iss
Haider Costs and outcomes of trauma care at centers treating a higher proportion of older patients: the case for geriatric trauma centers
2014 Quick Shot 78 4
Saito Evaluation of the safety and feasibility of resuscitative endovascu-lar balloon occlusion of the aorta
2014 Plenary 78 5
Harvin The impact of tranexamic acid on mortality in injured patients with hyperfibrinolysis
2014 Plenary 78 5
McCoy Impact of specific postoperative complications on the outcomes of emergency general surgery patients
2014 Plenary 78 5
Bukur Does unit designation matter? A dedicated trauma ICU is associat-ed with lower post injury complication rates and death after major complication
2014 Plenary 78 5
Murphy The pediatric trauma center and the inclusive trauma system: im-pact on splenectomy rates
2014 Plenary 78 5
Ziesmann Validation of the Quality of Ultrasound Imaging and Competence (QUICk) score as an objective assessment tool for the FAST exam
2014 Poster 78 5
Hoth SIRT1 mediates a primed response to immune challenge after trau-matic lung injury
2014 Poster 78 5
Duane National mandatory motorcycle helmet laws may save $2.2 billion annually: an inpatient and value of statistical life analysis
2014 Poster 78 6
Matsumoto The clinical significance of circulating soluble RAGE in patients with severe sepsis
2014 Plenary 78 6
Galante Level I academic trauma center integration as a model for sustain-ing combat surgical skills: the right surgeon in the right place for the right time
2014 Quick Shot 78 6
Gonzalez The validity of abdominal examination in blunt trauma patients with distracting injuries
2014 Plenary 78 6
Winchell A reassessment of the impact of trauma systems consultation on regional trauma system development
2014 Plenary 78 6
Lauerman Lethal now or lethal later: the natural history of grade 4 blunt cer-ebrovascular injury
2014 Plenary 78 6
Browder Minimally invasive is maximally effective: diagnostic and thera-peutic laparoscopy for penetrating abdominal injuries
2014 Plenary 78 6
Doucet Complete ultrasonography of trauma (CUST) in screening selected blunt abdominal trauma patients is equivalent to ct while reducing radiation exposure and cost
2013 Quick Shot 79 2
Appendix I: AAST Papers in 2015
26
Corresponding Author
Article Title Type/Article
Header Vol Iss
Talving Pneumomediastinum Following blunt trauma: worth an exhaustive workup?
2014 Plenary 79 2
Utter Characteristics of chest wall injuries that predict post-recovery pulmonary symptoms: A secondary analysis of data from a ran-domized trial
2014 Plenary 79 2
Bosarge Stress-induced hyperglycemia is associated with higher mortality
in severe traumatic brain injury 2014 Quick Shot 79 2
Zander Venous thromboembolic risk assessment models should not solely guide prophylaxis and surveillance in trauma patients
2014 Quick Shot 79 2
Rappold The evil of good is better: Making the case for basic life support transport for penetrating trauma victims in an urban environment
2014 Plenary 79 3
Rangel Mortality after emergency surgery continues to rise after discharge in the elderly: Predictors of one-year mortality
2014 Plenary 79 3
Zarzaur The Splenic Injury Outcomes Trial: An American Association For the Surgery of Trauma multi-Institutional study
2014 Plenary 79 3
Zielinski A prospective analysis of urinary tract infections among elderly trauma patients
2014 Poster 79 4
Moore
Implementation of resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of
the aorta (REBOA) as an alternative to resuscitative thoracotomy
for noncompressible truncal hemorrhage
2014 Plenary 79 4
Majercik In-hospital outcomes and costs of surgical stabilization versus non
operative management of severe rib fractures 2014 Plenary 79 4
Martini Fibrinogen concentrate administration inhibits endogenous fibrin-
ogen synthesis in pigs after traumatic hemorrhage 2014 Plenary 79 4
Hink Risks go beyond the violence: association between intimate part-ner violence, mental illness, and substance abuse among females
2014 Plenary 79 5
Matsushima Emergent operation for isolated severe traumatic brain injury:
Does time matter? 2014 Poster 79 5
Gilani Intravascular ultrasound enhanced aortic sizing for endovascular
treatment of blunt aortic injury 2014 Poster 79 5
West An FcγRIIa polymorphism with decreased C-reactive protein bind-
ing is associated with sepsis and decreased monocyte HLA-DR ex-2014 Poster 79 5
Appendix I: AAST Papers in 2015
27
Appendix II: Uncited articles, 2012-2013
Title Publication
Year Volume Issue
A prospective study of thrombophilia in trauma patients with pulmonary embolism 2012 72 1 Cognitive-behavioral determinants of pain and disability two years after traumatic injury: A cross-sectional survey study
2012 72 2
Massive juxta-articular defects of the distal femur reconstructed by series connected double-strut free-vascularized fibular grafts
2012 72 2
A portable thoracic closed drainage instrument for hemopneumothorax 2012 72 3
Experimental multiscale analysis of liver damage and failure process under compres-sion
2012 72 3
Primary free functioning muscle transfer for fingers with accompanying tendon transfer for thumb provide one-stage upper extremity composite reconstruction in acute open wound
2012 72 3
Effect of divergent screw fixation in vertical medial malleolus fractures 2012 72 3
Single-drug sedation with fentanyl for prehospital postintubation sedation in trauma patients
2012 72 4
Effect of mini-fragment fixation on the stabilization of medial malleolus fractures 2012 72 4
The medial transepicondylar approach to the elbow: A little-known technique 2012 72 4
The smart screw: A fancy skill for sacroiliac screw insertion 2012 72 4
Anarchy and the surgical care of President William McKinley 2012 72 4
Primary open reduction and internal fixation with headless compression screws in the treatment of Chinese patients with acute Lisfranc joint injuries
2012 72 5
Onion flap: A novel technique for reconstruction of burn nail deformities 2012 72 5 A quick and easy closure technique for abdominal stab wound after diagnostic lapa-roscopy
2012 72 5
The association between positive screen for future persistent posttraumatic stress symptoms and injury incident variables in the pediatric trauma care setting
2012 72 6
The Fort Hood Massacre: Lessons learned from a high profile mass casualty 2012 72 6
Lipopolysaccharide effects on the proliferation of NRK52E cells via alternations in gap-junction function
2012 73 1
A comparison of fluid instillation volumes to assess intra-abdominal pressure using Kron's methods
2012 73 1
The aging motorcyclist: A comparative epidemiologic study on pattern and severity of injury
2012 73 1
Injury profiles related to mortality in patients with a low Injury Severity Score: A case-mix issue?
2012 73 1
The Battlefield Health and Trauma Research Institute Scientific Ethics Committee: An evolving model for fostering a culture of integrity
2012 73 1(S)
Are general surgeons behind the curve when it comes to disaster preparedness training? A survey of general surgery and emergency medicine trainees in the United States by the Eastern Association for the Surgery for Trauma Committee on Disaster Preparedness
2012 73 3
Chronic consequences of acute injuries: Worse survival after discharge 2012 73 3
Surgical management of closed crush injury-induced compartment syndrome after earthquakes in resource-scarce settings
2012 73 3
Minimally invasive surgery for acute noncomplicated epidural hematoma: An inno-vative endoscopic-assisted method
2012 73 3
Injury-related hospital admissions of military dependents compared with similarly aged nonmilitary insured infants, children, and adolescents
2012 73 3(S)
Management of secondary hemorrhage from early graft failure in military extremity wounds
2012 73 4
28
Appendix II: Uncited Articles, 2012-2013
Title Publication
Year Volume Issue
Percutaneous cardiopulmonary support for catastrophic pulmonary fat embolism in pigs
2012 73 4
Development of a finite element model for blast injuries to the pig mandible and a preliminary biomechanical analysis
2012 73 4
Symphysis pubis width in the pediatric population: A computerized tomography 2012 73 4
Defining acute aortic syndrome after trauma: Are Abbreviated Injury Scale codes a useful surrogate descriptor?
2012 73 4
Physiopathology of anemia and transfusion thresholds in isolated head injury 2012 73 4
Management of chronic radial head dislocation associated with segment bone de-fect in ulna after osteomyelitis
2012 73 4
Bilateral asymmetric hip dislocation: A case series and literature review of a rare injury pattern
2012 73 4
Damage control resuscitation: Early decision strategies in abdominal gunshot wounds using an easy ABCD mnemonic
2012 73 5
Therapeutic effects of inhaling aerosolized surfactant alone or with dexamethasone generated by a novel noninvasive apparatus on acute lung injury in rats
2012 73 5
Negative-pressure wound therapy: A hemostatic adjunct for control of coagulopa-thic hemorrhage in large soft tissue wounds
2012 73 5
Age should be considered in the decision making of prophylactic splenic angioem-bolization in nonoperative management of blunt splenic trauma: A study of 208 consecutive civilian trauma patients
2012 73 5
Western Trauma Association Critical Decisions in Trauma: Management of parap-neumonic effusion
2012 73 6
Using micropower impulse radar technology to screen for pneumothorax: An inter-national bi-institutional study
2012 73 6
Prostacyclin reduces plasma volume loss after skeletal muscle trauma in the rat 2012 73 6
Changes of lymph metabolites in a rat model of sepsis induced by cecal ligation and puncture
2012 73 6
Bedside thoracic ultrasonography of the fourth intercostal space reliably deter-mines safe removal of tube thoracostomy after traumatic injury
2012 73 6
Medical preparation for the 2008 Republican National Convention: A practical guide 2012 73 6
Medical preparation for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Denver, Colora- 2012 73 6
Torso challenges for the acute care surgeon: Technical solutions for large torso de-fects
2013 74 1
Prospective comparison of packed red blood cell-to-fresh frozen plasma transfusion ratio of 4:1 versus 1:1 during acute massive burn excision
2013 74 1
Tissue oxygen saturation changes during intramedullary nailing of lower-limb frac-tures
2013 74 1
The ability of computed tomography to diagnose placental abruption in the trauma patient
2013 74 1
The effects of craniocerebral and extracranial trauma on the changes in serum tes-tosterone and estradiol in the early stage and their clinical significance
2013 74 1
Process improvement in trauma: Traumatic bladder injuries and compliance with recommended imaging evaluation
2013 74 1
A genomic analysis of Clostridium difficile infections in blunt trauma patients 2013 74 1 Autologous transplantation of endothelial progenitor cells to prevent multiple or-gan dysfunction syndromes in pig
2013 74 2
29
Appendix II: Uncited Articles, 2012-2013
Title Publication
Year Volume Issue
A comparison of injuries, crashes, and outcomes for pediatric rear occupants in traffic motor vehicle collisions
2013 74 2
Don't be a flamin' fool: Effectiveness of an adult burn prevention media campaign in two regions in Queensland, Australia-An interventional study
2013 74 2
Orthopedic medical instruments: From antiquity to modern times-A historical essay 2013 74 2
Achilles' death: Anatomical considerations regarding the most famous trauma of the Trojan War
2013 74 3
Functional outcomes following blunt cerebrovascular injury 2013 74 4
Localized leptin release may be an important mechanism of curcumin action after acute ischemic injuries
2013 74 4
The military surgical legacy of Vladimir Oppel (1872-1932) 2013 74 4
Thoracic trauma in Iraq and Afghanistan 2013 74 5
A natural immune modulator attenuates stress hormone and catecholamine con-centrations in polymicrobial peritonitis
2013 74 6
Trauma patients with a previous organ transplant: Outcomes are better than ex-pected-A retrospective analysis
2013 74 6
Louisiana motorcycle fatalities in the wake of governmentally implemented change: A retrospective analysis of the motorcycle morbidity and mortality before, during, and after the repeal of a statewide helmet mandate
2013 74 6
Time-dependent prediction and evaluation of variable importance using super-learning in high-dimensional clinical data
2013 75 1(S)
Feasibility and safety of a novel in vivo model to assess playground falls in children 2013 75 1
Improving overtriage of aeromedical transport in trauma: A regional process im-provement initiative
2013 75 1
Evaluation of the risk of noncontiguous fractures of the spine in blunt trauma 2013 75 1
It takes a village to raise research productivity: Impact of a Trauma Interdisciplinary Group for Research at an urban, Level 1 trauma center
2013 75 1
Analysis of remote trauma transfers in South Central Texas with comparison with current US combat operations: Results of the RemTORN-I study
2013 75 2(S)
Early effectiveness of endoscopic posterior urethra primary alignment 2013 75 2
Improved mortality from penetrating neck and maxillofacial trauma using Foley catheter balloon tamponade in combat
2013 75 2
Neurologic outcome of minimal head injury patients managed with or without a routine repeat head computed tomography
2013 75 2
Let it snow: How snowfall and injury mechanism affect ski and snowboard injuries in Vail, Colorado, 2011-2012
2013 75 2
What the ancients knew of the fatal anatomic consequences of wounding of the lower thorax
2013 75 2
Emergency hernia repair in cirrhotic patients with ascites 2013 75 3
Predictors of survival and neurologic outcomes in children with traumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest during the early postresuscitative period
2013 75 3
Sternal fracture: Isolated lesion versus polytrauma from associated extrasternal injuries-Analysis of 1,867 cases
2013 75 3
The effect of suturing on force for dislodgement of tracheostomy tubes: Medial versus lateral sutures
2013 75 3
Effects of leading mortality risk factors among trauma patients vary by age 2013 75 3
30
Appendix II: Uncited Articles, 2012-2013
Title Publication
Year Volume Issue
Can the reduction of pediatric injury rates be sustained using a community-based approach?
2013 75 3(S)
Can nurse education in the postpartum period reduce car seat misuse among newborns?
2013 75 3(S)
Prevalence of male adolescent dating violence in the pediatric emergency de- 2013 75 3(S)
Combat injury coding: A review and reconfiguration 2013 75 4
Current concepts in the management of biologic and chemical warfare causali- 2013 75 4
Safety and efficacy of pharmacologic thromboprophylaxis following blunt head injury: A systematic review
2013 75 4
Risky drinking among parents of pediatric trauma patients 2013 75 4
Who needs an orthopedic trauma surgeon? An analysis of US national injury 2013 75 4
Obesity and overweight as a risk factor for pneumonia in polytrauma patients: A retrospective cohort study
2013 75 4
Group VIB Ca2+-independent phospholipase A(2 gamma) is associated with acute lung injury following trauma and hemorrhagic shock
2013 75 5
Pulsed dosed delivery of oxygen in mechanically ventilated pigs with acute lung 2013 75 5
Brain-type natriuretic peptide and right ventricular end-diastolic volume index measurements are imprecise estimates of circulating blood volume in critically ill subjects
2013 75 5
Surgical management of traumatic isolated sternal fracture and manubriosternal dislocation
2013 75 5
Incidental findings in patients with multiple injuries: How to proceed? 2013 75 5
Contemporary acute care surgery percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube placement: An extreme bumper height and complications
2013 75 5
Long-term outcome analysis of liver transplantation for severe hepatic trauma 2013 75 5
The value of digital rectal examination in assessing for pelvic fracture-associated urethral injury: What defines a high-riding or nonpalpable prostate?
2013 75 5
From the barn to the operating room and back: The Amish way of life leads to improved throughput and outcomes following trauma
2013 75 5
Transfusion begets anemia: The effect of aged blood on hematopoiesis 2013 75 6
Prospective evaluation of the utility of routine postoperative cystogram after traumatic bladder injury
2013 75 6
Vasopressin for cerebral perfusion pressure management in patients with severe traumatic brain injury: Preliminary results of a randomized controlled trial
2013 75 6
Octogenarians and motor vehicle collisions: Postdischarge mortality is lower than expected
2013 75 6
31
Appendix III: Top-Cited Articles, 2014-2015
Title Authors 2014
Pub Date Total
Citations
Hemostatic resuscitation is neither hemostatic nor resuscitative in trauma hem-orrhage
Khan et al MAR 2014 15
Thrombelastography and rotational thromboelastometry early amplitudes in 182 trauma patients with clinical suspicion of severe injury
Meyer et al MAR 2014 13
Acquired coagulopathy of traumatic brain injury defined by routine laboratory tests: Which laboratory values matter?
Joseph et al JAN 2014 10
Predicting hospital discharge disposition in geriatric trauma patients: Is frailty the answer?
Joseph et al JAN 2014 10
Hyperfibrinolysis, physiologic fibrinolysis, and fibrinolysis shutdown: The spec-trum of postinjury fibrinolysis and relevance to antifibrinolytic therapy
Moore et al DEC 2014 9
Do all trauma patients benefit from tranexamic acid? Valle et al JUN 2014 8
Systematic review of the benefits and harms of whole-body computed tomog-raphy in the early management of multitrauma patients: Are we getting the whole picture?
Surendran et al APR 2014 8
Long-term outcomes of ground-level falls in the elderly Ayoung-Chee et al FEB 2014 8
Outcomes of endovascular repair for patients with blunt traumatic aortic injury Azizzadeh et al FEB 2014 8
Persistent inflammation, immunosuppression, and catabolism syndrome after severe blunt trauma
Vanzant et al JAN 2014 8
Fulminant Clostridium difficile colitis: Prospective development of a risk scoring system
van der Wilden et al FEB 2014 7
Flail chest injuries: A review of outcomes and treatment practices from the National Trauma Data Bank
Dehghan et al FEB 2014 7
Morbid obesity predisposes trauma patients to worse outcomes: A National Trauma Data Bank analysis
Ditillo et al JAN 2014 7
The public health burden of emergency general surgery in the United States: A 10-year analysis of the Nationwide Inpatient Sample-2001 to 2010
Gale et al AUG 2014 6
Fibrinogen and platelet contributions to clot formation: Implications for trauma resuscitation and thromboprophylaxis
Kornblith et al FEB 2014 6
Resveratrol attenuates hypoxic injury in a primary hepatocyte model of hemor-rhagic shock and resuscitation
Powell et al FEB 2014 6
Are we delivering two standards of care for pelvic trauma? Availability of angio-embolization after hours and on weekends increases time to therapeutic inter-vention
Schwartz et al JAN 2014 6
The 2016 impact factor (i.e. that released in June 2017) will include citation data from 2014-2015. The following
pages gather early citation results for these two years.
Content published in 2014 has been cited 623 times with an h-index of 8. Articles that have published in 2015 to
date (7 Sept 2015) have garnered 31 citations overall and an h-index of 2.
32
Appendix III: Top-Cited Articles, 2014-2015
Title Authors 2015
Pub Date Total
Citations
Evaluation and management of blunt traumatic aortic injury: A practice management guideline from the Eastern Association for the Surgery of
Fox et al JAN 2015 3
Pathologic metabolism: An exploratory study of the plasma metabolome of critical injury
Peltz et al APR 2015 2
MitoQ modulates oxidative stress and decreases inflammation following hemorrhage
Powell et al MAR 2015 2
Cell necrosis-independent sustained mitochondrial and nuclear DNA re-lease following trauma surgery
McIlroy et al FEB 2015 2
The excess morbidity and mortality of emergency general surgery Havens et al FEB 2015 2
Contemporary management and outcomes of blunt thoracic aortic injury: A multicenter retrospective study
DuBose et al FEB 2015 2
Nonoperative management of hemodynamically unstable abdominal trau-ma patients with angioembolization and resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta
Ogura et al JAN 2015 2
Traumatic intra-abdominal hemorrhage control: Has current technology tipped the balance toward a role for prehospital intervention?
Chaudery et al JAN 2015 2
Clinical evidence of inflammation driving secondary brain injury: A system-atic review
Hinson et al JAN 2015 2
Early acute kidney injury in military casualties Heegard et al MAY 2015 1
Improved survival in UK combat casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan: 2003-2012
Penn-Barwell et al MAY 2015 1
The role of REBOA in the control of exsanguinating torso hemorrhage Biffl et al MAY 2015 1
Feasibility of screening for preinjury frailty in hospitalized injured older adults
Maxwell et al APR 2015 1
A comparison of prehospital lactate and systolic blood pressure for predict-ing the need for resuscitative care in trauma transported by ground
Guyette et al MAR 2015 1
Diagnosis and deployment of a self-expanding foam for abdominal exsan-guination: Translational questions for human use
Rago et al MAR 2015 1
The AAST PROspective Observational Vascular Injury Treatment (PROOVIT) registry: Multicenter data on modern vascular injury diagnosis, management, and outcomes
DuBose et al FEB 2015 1
Efficacy of a prehospital self-expanding polyurethane foam for noncom-pressible hemorrhage under extreme operational conditions
Rago et al FEB 2015 1
Understanding traumatic shock: Out-of-hospital hypotension with and without other physiologic compromise
Newgard et al FEB 2015 1
The effect of cyclosporine A in hemorrhagic shock model of rats Kim et al FEB 2015 1
Outcomes after emergency general surgery at teaching versus nonteaching hospitals
Zafar et al JAN 2015 1
Refining the operative curriculum of the acute care surgery fellowship Davis et al JAN 2015 1
33
Appendix IV: Social Media Analytics
Geography
Social media presence was an important goal for
the Journal, primarily to develop a cohesive trau-
ma community online. An ancillary benefit: online
activity can be easily tracked and analyzed to
reveal reader demographics.
With a full year of active presence online (the edi-
torial office was given custodial control of the
Twitter account in April 2014), we are now able to
present details of our online community.
Above is a map of followers for whom location can be tracked (via IP ad-
dress); at left, a geographical breakdown of followers by region.
In North America, readers are concentrated most heavily in the northeast,
but coverage across the US, Canada, and Mexico is good. Europe homes the
largest percentage of followers (41%), primarily in the UK and Scandinavia.
Audience Profile
Most followers (74%) are male and based
in English-speaking countries. A minority
(8.5%) are Spanish speakers.
“Social authority” is a rating of influence
and engagement on Twitter. Influence is
calculated by number of followers and
rate of audience acquisition. Engagement
is defined by the number of times users
share or re-broadcast content.
The chart above-right displays social authority of Journal followers. The majority of readers are casual users of
Twitter, with scores under 20. However, recently we have attracted followers with large audiences of their own —
the subscriber with the highest social influence score (83) is the Washington Times, which joined this week after a
reporter reached out for background sources.
The Journal’s own social authority score (50) is currently the highest at LWW, and among the highest of surgical
journals.
34
Appendix IV: Social Media Analytics
To map audience overlap, we looked at relations between the Journal, affiliate societies, and other publications.
Societies
The Journal, AAST, and EAST share a
common audience of 14.2%. The
AAST and EAST share 31.9% of fol-
lowers.
In terms of unique users, the AAST
has 24% of followers the Journal
does not reach directly.
Similarly, 49% of Journal followers
do not subscribe to the AAST’s feed.
To encourage cross pollination, we
will ramp up efforts to retweet more
AAST content and direct traffic to
aast.org.
Combined total followers to both
societies and the Journal is 7,002
users.
LWW Journals
We compared audiences of LWW-branded publications to track audience engagement for journals with similar
platforms.
Ann Surg and Crit Care Med are both up-
dated via LWW’s RSS feed, and both
have been on Twitter for similar amounts
of time (the Journal’s feed is ~200 days
older).
The Journal outranks both titles in terms
of social authority (Ann Surg, 49; Crit Care
Med, 47). That said, both titles have high-
er follower counts. Followers, incidental-
ly, do not correlate well with formal sub-
scriptions:
Ann Surg = 1760 subs,
9258 followers
Crit Care Med = 15,806 subs,
6322 followers
JTACS = 2340 subs,
5082 followers
JTACS
EAST
AAST
JTACS
Crit
Care
Med
Ann
Surg
35
Appendix IV: Social Media Analytics
General Interest Surgery Journals
In the realm of larger, general interest surgical titles, the Journal’s social authority score is bested by JAMA Surgery
(score of 54).
The British Journal of Surgery has a similar
number of followers (5229), and trails the
Journal’s social authority by several points
(BJS = 45). With a retweet rate of 21% (vs.
the Journal’s current 10.5%), it is likely that
BJS will surpass us soon.
These two journals share a large audience
in common. The Journal overlaps only
slightly with both titles (at 3.9% common
users).
Niche Journals
Specialty journals, such as J Amer
Coll Surg and Shock, have a much
smaller social media footprint.
Both titles publish fewer items than
the Journal, which leaves them with
fewer opportunities for publicizing
new content. Neither journal has
actively curated web presence (i.e.
both are updated via RSS feed).
The Journal shares 7.6% of its audi-
ence with JACS; only 0.8% of its au-
dience also follows Shock.
However, 54% of Shock’s followers
(n=52) also follow the Journal. For
JACS, 39% of its audience also sub-
scribes to the Journal’s channel.
JTACS
BJS
JTACS
JAMA
Surg
Shock
JACS JTACS