Progress to Date for Diabetes Care : Going mobile and putting information at your fingertips!

Abstract

In January, in my first editorial as editor in chief for Diabetes Care, I described our editorial team’s future plans for the journal. With all the changes we were experiencing in research progress, in data dissemination, in the funding of priorities, in health care changes, and in the increased burden of diabetes worldwide, I was very optimistic that Diabetes Care was “well positioned to take advantage of the noted opportunities.” Our team welcomed both the prospects and the challenges ahead. In my first editorial, I also wrote: “The saying that ‘the only constant is change’ applies very well to Diabetes Care for the next 5 years.” I made that statement after reviewing how the prior editors continued to adapt to the changing times during their tenures. Essentially, they either continued “the current course for Diabetes Care with only minor adjustments” based on assessing the conditions operative at the time, or they identified and took full “advantage of the unique strengths of the journal and significantly added to them.” In essence, I felt that during my tenure and charge as editor, I would not do anything differently. I would survey the current landscape of clinical, research, and health care changes and adapt the journal and strategies to provide the most up-to-date information for our readers. Now, 6 months later, I can definitely state with a great deal of confidence that as an editorial team, we are clearly on track, if not slightly ahead of our schedule, in strengthening the journal. However, I will have to readily admit that I clearly underestimated the rate of change in a certain area. Specifically, and as outlined below, many changes have been made to vastly improve and accelerate how information is disseminated from Diabetes Care. The rate at which these changes have taken place has been nothing short of incredible! There was no doubt that our editorial team would strive to publish high-impact manuscripts for specific investigation in the historical areas of interest for the journal. However, we also stated that we would continue to proactively seek quality, state-of-the-art reviews by leaders in the field. These efforts have clearly come to fruition. For example, in the very near future in-depth reviews will be published on metformin and risk of cancer, on the interpretation and management of glycemia in high-risk patients with cardiovascular disease, and on gastrointestinal manisfestations of diabetes. We have reached out to the leading research teams in the field and have asked them to submit the latest in “bench-to-bedside” articles. Examples of these efforts include reports on the mechanistic underpinnings and clinical relevance of the fibrinolysis system in human cardiovascular disease. Additional reports will comment on the hypothesis that hypersecretion of insulin, induced by inadvertent environmental β-cell toxins, causes obesity, leading to diabetes and will also comment on its modulation by surgical intervention. In addition, we continually seek more point-counterpoint debates in which two sides of a controversial position are discussed at a high level. As a prime example of these efforts and in this issue, we have a narrative regarding the role of A1C as opposed to other glycated protein measures on relevance to cardiovascular disease mortality in patients on dialysis. In addition, we will soon be publishing a point-counterpoint narrative on the controversy surrounding self-monitoring of blood glucose testing and its value in individuals not on insulin. These initiatives are considered the “low-hanging fruit” by our editorial team. They are narratives that Diabetes Care has traditionally published and ones at which we will continue to excel. Six months ago we also cited our plans to hold the first Diabetes Care Symposium at the 72nd Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in Philadelphia. As planned, this event was a high-level symposium that featured articles submitted for publication in Diabetes Care. These articles represented landmark diabetes trials and innovative clinical and translational studies that challenged current paradigms of diabetes treatment or presented evolving clinical management strategies. At the time of the online submission for publication, authors were given the option as to whether they wanted their manuscripts considered for the symposium. Over 150 manuscripts were submitted for the competition. The editorial committee selected six of these articles for eventual presentation. The authors of the selected papers were then invited to give an oral presentation at the symposium held during the ADA’s Scientific Sessions in June 2012. The manuscripts selected for presentation covered a broad scope of topics ranging from improving outcomes in islet cell transplantation to modulation of ectopic lipids by specific diets in individuals with type 2 diabetes. Topics also include evaluation of results of bariatric surgery that was performed at lower BMI cut points. These articles now appear in a special symposium section in this July issue of Diabetes Care. Because of the popularity of the initiative and the success of the symposium, this competition and symposium will be held yearly during the ADA’s Scientific Sessions. Invitations for consideration for next year’s symposium will open in the next few months. Specifically, beginning this fall and at the time of online submission to Diabetes Care, authors will again be given the option of submitting their manuscripts for the symposium. Another initiative that came to fruition was the convening of the Editor’s Diabetes Expert Forum. This forum was held prior to the recent ADA Scientific Sessions. Essentially, the idea of such a forum was to assemble thought leaders from around the world and to specifically focus on and discuss one particular topic. The topic of the first forum was “Personalized Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes.” Prior to the forum, the selected faculty were assigned specific areas of the topic to prepare and discuss at the forum. The entire faculty were then allowed to debate the topic. Thus, the session was highly interactive. At the writing of this editorial, the comments and findings from the forum are being summarized, and the major points are being compiled. The narrative resulting from this forum will be published in an upcoming issue of Diabetes Care. This initiative is also being planned on a yearly basis. However, despite our progress as outlined in the above initiatives, the accelerated rate of change that I had referred to in my opening paragraph did not relate to these initiatives but to the changes that have taken place in the way the information from Diabetes Care is disseminated. These changes include the availability of a podcast, mobile-optimized websites and a mobile app, and the completion of the online archiving project. PODCAST A newly available service is the Diabetes Core Update. This is a free monthly podcast that presents and discusses the latest clinically relevant articles from Diabetes Care and from ADA’s other science and medical journals: Diabetes, Clinical Diabetes, and Diabetes Spectrum. Each episode is approximately 20 min long and presents five to six articles recently published in ADA journals. The podcast is intended for practicing physicians and for health care professionals. The hosts of Diabetes Core Update—Neil S. Skolnik, MD, and John J. Russell, MD, both from the Temple University School of Medicine and Abington Memorial Hospital—discuss how the latest research and information published in the journals of the ADA are relevant to clinical practice and how they can be applied in a treatment setting. Users can download and subscribe to the podcast via iTunes at http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/diabetes-core-update/id501572453. GOING MOBILE In addition to the podcast, Diabetes Care and its sister journals are now available as mobile-optimized websites for viewing on smart phones and on other mobile devices. Using their iPhones, androids, or other smart phones, visitors to Diabetes Care Online (care.diabetesjournals.org) are automatically redirected to the mobile version. Users can now view content in a format designed specifically for the small screen size and functionality of their mobile devices. Each mobile site’s top-level navigation mimics that of the traditional sites and provides quick access to tables of contents, abstracts, full-text articles, PDFs, tables and figures, and supplementary materials. The mobile sites also provide simplified searches, personalization, and article-share options. In addition, the ADA has recently launched a full-text mobile app for Diabetes Care and its sister ADA journals. The ADA Journals app provides users with the ability to download, search, view, and save abstracts and full-text articles, including publish-ahead-of-print articles. In addition to accessing the latest journal content, users can subscribe to and follow diabetes-related news feeds and bookmark content. They can also share articles via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter. The app will also support configurable offline content caching users’ access to full-text articles, figures, and tables anytime and anywhere without a network connection. The app can be freely downloaded from iTunes at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/journals-american-diabetes/id521187781?mt=8. ONLINE ARCHIVES Additionally, the ADA has recently completed the online PDF archives of Diabetes Care. Prior to the completion of the journal’s online archives, PDFs were available for articles published in 2000 and after. Now, searchable PDF files of all articles dating back to the first issue in 1978 of Diabetes Care are accessible at http://care.diabetesjournals.org. The complete online archives for Diabetes Care include PDF files of an additional 200 issues, 5,177 articles, and 20,710 pages of content published between 1978 and 1999. The completion of the online archives of Diabetes Care represents a significant step forward for the journal. By making past research published in Diabetes Care readily available to our readers, reviewers, and contributors, the ADA and Diabetes Care hope to accelerate and contribute to future research related to diabetes care, prevention, and treatment. SOCIAL MEDIA Lastly, readers can keep up with news related to these and other enhancements, and of course with the latest research published in Diabetes Care, by following the recently launched ADA Journals Facebook (/DiabetesJournals) and Twitter (@ADA_Journals) profiles. The goals of these social media presences are to provide our authors with yet another vehicle to promote and disseminate their research and to give our readers yet another vehicle to discover and access the latest content published in Diabetes Care. If you are interested in exploring Facebook and Twitter as tools to keep up with current developments in diabetes research, treatment, and education, I highly encourage you to follow the ADA Journals’ Facebook and Twitter feeds. Thus, in this editorial I have outlined the progress to date that has occurred with Diabetes Care. I have also provided an update on the new services provided by the ADA in support of Diabetes Care and its sister journals. As you can appreciate, I am clearly the “messenger.” The work to achieve our goals to date has been the team effort of our associate editors, our editorial office, and the ADA staff. It goes without saying that the associate editors of the current team and the prior editorial team, under the guidance of Dr. Fonseca, have done a tremendous job in vetting manuscripts and keeping the hurdle high for ultimate publication. Clearly, Lyn Reynolds and her team at the editorial office in Indianapolis, Indiana, have to be given tremendous credit for the smooth transition of the new team. They have kept us on track and have identified and corrected errors that I made during my “on the job” training. Lyn’s team seems to be always at work, as they provide responses to my questions and concerns almost immediately, no matter the hour or day. Chris Kohler and his staff at the ADA office in Alexandria, Virginia, need to be congratulated for their planning, their tireless effort, and the completion of all the new applications available. I am thrilled with the progress to date and with the positive changes that the ADA has implemented for Diabetes Care. If my future years as editor of Diabetes Care are as rewarding and productive as the first six months, I would have accomplished what all my predecessors before me had accomplished for Diabetes Care … specifically, taking over a journal in great shape and making it even better for the next editor!