About Us
- Introduction
- Choice of title
- Why electronic?
- Mission
- Vision
- Objectives
- Values
- Scope
- Ownership/Control
- JEPHC Management Committee
- Subscription Information
- Advertising Information
- Indexing
- Archives
- Linking
Introduction
Paramedics Australasia (PA) is the successor of the Australian College of Ambulance Professionals (ACAP). ACAP was launched in 2000 as the national professional association for ambulance professionals in Australia and was the successor to The Institute of Ambulance Officers (Australia) which was formed in 1973. ACAP introduced a new organisational structure, revised objectives, and a broadened membership base to be more inclusive of non-clinicians, such as administrators, educators and researchers, and of the expanding range of emergency care providers in the prehospital setting.
Paramedics Australasia supports the continued evolution of university degree programs for both paramedic and kindred professionals. Active participation in prehospital research is a diverse and important growth area towards which many important studies are often undisclosed due to limited publishing space in quality medical journals. JEPHC aims to provide a greater opportunity to publish in this field and to bring up-to-date information from national and international sources to the emergency primary health care community.
Choice of title
Paramedics Australasia is cognisant of the multiple changes in health care delivery. The community increasingly expects effective partnerships, integration and collaboration in the provision of emergency health care services by knowledgeable, up-to-date and reflective professionals who contribute to the further development of these services.
Increasingly, prehospital care is involving the disciplines of primary health care, public health, health services management, disaster medicine and the social sciences in a global approach to understanding and preventing acute health events and in improving the outcomes from community-based emergency health events. The title of the journal was chosen to be contemporary, reflect these changes and project a vision to the future.
The title was also chosen to reflect the field of interest and its inclusive nature. Specifically, the title does not focus on a particular function, such as practitioner, clinician or educator, nor reflect a particular discipline, such as Ambulance or Paramedic.
Why electronic?
In deciding the publishing format for JEPHC, the Paramedics Australasia Board sought advice from members, reviewed other professional journals, and consulted librarians and editors of journals in a wide range of health disciplines. In particular, PA specifically reviewed journals in the prehospital emergency care setting at an international level.
PA was also keen to reflect the needs of its members throughout Australia and to accommodate the interests of the increasing emergency care community in the primary health care setting. PA was keen to make the journal as accessible as possible to as many potential readers as could be accommodated.
PA was also cognisant of the growth and success of similar online publications and had little difficulty in deciding that the new journal should be web-based and hosted at a site where expertise in the development of the journal was readily available.
Mission
The mission of JEPHC is to:
- Advance and promote the science and the art of prehospital care research, education, clinical practice, policy and service delivery; and,
- provide a forum to reflect the professional interests of the multidisciplinary emergency primary health care community.
Vision
JEPHC will become a peer-reviewed ejournal with the highest citations and impact factor amongst international journals relating to emergency primary health care.
Objectives
JEPHC will meet its mission and aspire to its vision statement by:
- Effectively and efficiently "running the business" of the journal in a transparent and accountable manner, by having a management committee, representative of the ideals of PA and inclusive of the necessary skills;
- Demonstrating "editorial independence", by appointing an editorial team representative of the multidisciplinary emergency primary health care community, and inclusive of individuals both with a track record in the scope of the journal and with potential to take future leadership positions in the editorial team;
- Demonstrating a sound, internationally recognised editorial process, by adopting, as a principle, the existing international standards in the production of medical journals, eg WAME, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE);
- Having a national focus with an international perspective;
- Being peer-reviewed, and listed in appropriate electronic databases, including the International Citation Index;
- Publishing articles of the highest quality in original research which advance the body of knowledge in emergency primary health care;
- Providing a forum for disseminating evidence-based innovations and promoting critical thought and debate on controversies in the field of emergency primary health care and related disciplines;
- Promoting the role of PA, Paramedics, and kindred organisations, in the health care system;
- Providing information which will enhance the research, education, clinical practice, policymaking and service delivery skills the multidisciplinary emergency primary health care community;
- Promoting the Australasian emergency primary health care community internationally and informing the Australasian emergency primary health care community of international developments;
- Ensuring that JEPHC is readily accessible to all members of PA and of the national and international emergency primary health care community, including the ability to provide input, suggestions and feedback to the JEPHC management committee and/or editorial team, and to download articles from JEPHC; and
- Providing a nurturing environment for individuals, groups and organisations working in the emergency primary health care sector to publish their work in JPEHC, by providing pro-active guidance and support to potential authors, including a wide range of investigative methodologies and articles to stimulate debate and leadership in this rapidly changing field of health care.
Values
- Ethical principles required of researchers and medical journals;
- The principles of good research;
- A multidisciplinary approach;
- Excellence in all activities;
- Inclusive & valuing diversity in cultural, professional, organisational and individual perspectives;
- Supporting personal professional development;
- Collaboration with the emergency primary health care community and related organisations;
- Responsive to external and internal communications; and
- Continually improving the structure and process of the journal.
Scope
Clinicians form the bulk of the emergency health care workforce. However, JEPHC will also reflect the interests and needs of researchers, educators, policy makers and administrators.
Ambulance services have traditionally provided the core of out-of-hospital emergency health care, however, there has been a traditional and significant contribution from other health disciplines, such as medicine, eg general practitioners, and nursing, eg. Royal District Nursing Service. Of recent times there has been a significant broadening of the clinical scope of practice and service delivery of paramedics which has blurred the boundaries with kindred health disciplines. A two-way movement of paramedics contributing to other disciplines and professionals from other disciplines contributing to paramedic development has blurred these traditional boundaries even further and generated new vibrant partnerships.
In addition to this increasing collaboration between health professions in the field of emergency primary health care, there is a concurrent entry of less traditional providers, eg, community, workplace and fire service first responders as co-responders. There has been an increasing degree of sophistication in private patient transport services, an expansion of skill levels by industrial providers and increasing inclusion of paramedics in disaster settings, mass casualty incidents, rescue, aero-medical retrieval and membership in international emergency care schemes.
What is common to this increasing community of health care professionals is a practice in the out-of-hospital setting, frequently as providers of first contact, i.e. primary health care, with a focus on, but not exclusively restricted to, emergency health care, eg the interface with the non-emergency patient transport sector.
An exciting recent trend has been a greater analysis of the drivers for change within the traditional ambulance and emergency care services. This has lead to the recognition that other established disciplines can inform and enrich the traditional, medically driven base of ambulance services. There is now general acceptance for the need to embrace and enhance the discipline of emergency health care in the out-of-hospital setting with input and involvement from other disciplines, such as nursing, behavioural sciences, primary health care and public health.
JEPHC will reflect the inclusive paradigm of "emergency primary health care".
Ownership/Control
JEPHC Management Committee
Subscription Information
Access to the journal website is free to all readers.
Advertising Information
JEPHC will accept advertising subject to approval by the management committee.
Indexing
JEPHC is currently indexed with CINAHL, EMBASE and Ulrich's Periodicals Directory.
Archives
JEPHC is archived on this website and the National Library of Australia's web archive, PANDORA.
Linking
JEPHC is pleased for other organisations to include links to the JEPHC site from their website, provided they do not include our content. There is no need to ask our permission.
JEPHC embraces the following values:
Until 2012, when Paramedics Australasia assumed independent control of the journal, JEPHC was jointly owned by Paramedics Australasia and the Monash University Department of Community Emergency Health and Paramedic Practice (DCEHPP), formerly, Monash University Centre for Ambulance and Paramedic Studies (MUCAPS). From late 2012 the journal was solely managed by Paramedics Australasia.
The Editor, as convenor of the Editorial Team, has responsibility for the editorial policy and editorial content of JEPHC.
The membership of the JEPHC management committee is under review.
