Editorial

Citation

Gillies, A. and Harrop, N. (2014), "Editorial", Clinical Governance: An International Journal, Vol. 19 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/CGIJ-03-2014-0012

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Clinical Governance: An International Journal, Volume 19, Issue 2

It is now five years since we took over the editorship of Clinical Governance: An International Journal. One of our key goals was to live up to the international nature of the journal, believing that although the term “clinical governance” has its origins in the English NHS, the concepts resonate with clinicians and managers grappling with the challenges of delivering the best possible care and outcomes within the constraints of the environment.

Taking stock recently with our regional editors in North America and Australia, it is apparent that we have been fairly successful in internationalising our output, and this issue continues that trend. Tables I and II provide information about the countries from which we have received and published papers. To those whose papers have been rejected or who have not yet submitted, do not be discouraged, we are expanding the pages of CGIJ to accommodate more articles in 2014, so please continue to submit your work.

Table I Manuscripts accepted between 1 January 2010 and 13 March 2014, grouped by country of submission

Table II Submitted manuscripts grouped by country of submission

As editors of an international journal, we are fortunate that we can address a worldwide audience of clinicians, managers, policy makers and academics. From the widening range of our international contributors, we have aimed to select papers for publication on the basis of three criteria: the value of the topic addressed, the strength of evidence presented and the quality of argument expressed in literate English.

We would like to thank our regional editors: Professor Allan Spigelman (Australia) and Dr David Birnbaum (North America) for their work on behalf of the journal. We would particularly encourage our international readers in Australia and North America to submit articles to the journal or suggest special issues on topical themes, and to contact Allan or David or ourselves if you have any questions (contact details for the whole editorial team are available on the website: www.emeraldinsight.com/cgij.htm).

A traditional strength of CGIJ has been the linking of research to practice. In the last 12 months, we have both taken up part-time roles with the UK health care regulator, the Care Quality Commission. Although this does not entitle us to breach confidences or to assume the CQC’s endorsement of any statements we publish, our activities enable us to see at first hand the issues and challenges we address in the journal.

We remain committed to the principle of enhancing the practice of clinical governance. We believe that this is best served by articles which reflect on practice and add to our knowledge about clinical governance by reporting not just activity but lessons learnt. Ideally, these lessons have implications for our general readership and not just a narrow subset within a specific speciality. We also particularly welcome papers dealing with new conceptual approaches to clinical governance, because we believe the role of any journal is to explore novel ideas and concepts, but once again would ask you to consider how these new ideas add to our existing knowledge about clinical governance.

In simple terms, we would like every reader of every paper in CGIJ to be able to answer the following question by the end:

What does this mean for my knowledge and practice in clinical governance?

Or even more succinctly, “SO WHAT?”

Alan Gillies, Nick Harrop