Journal Information

Journal Policies and Operations Procedures

  • Becoming a reviewer
  • Peer review policy
  • Rejections
  • Reviewer’s check list
  • Editorial decisions
  • Appeals
  • Proofs and reprints
  • Reviewing feature articles and opinions
  • Unlabeled use
  • Content validation
  • Patient consent
  • Statistical analysis
  • Publication ethics
  • Data sharing and reproducibility
  • Ethical publishing practices
  • Plagiarism
  • Misconduct

Peer Review  

Becoming a reviewer

Editors are selected either by self-nomination, or by nominations that are made from the Editors-in-Chief and Editorial Board whereby reviews of letters, curriculum vitaes and interviews are conducted with the candidate and/or colleagues and experts in the field are conducted.  BHTY seeks the experts of the highest caliber and passion for the field, and prefers candidates that possess knowledge of academic journal workflow and familiarity with the peer review process. Note: BHTY obtains advice from expert reviewers that are not part of the journal's editorial staff.

To become a member of the BHTY  editorial or peer review boards, please send a letter to the editor, with your CV attached, to info@partnersindigitalhealth.com. 

 

Peer review policy

All submissions are first reviewed to determine if plagiarized content is contained by the managing editor. If plagiarism is detected, submissions are returned to the author with comment(s), or rejected outright as not original by the managing editor. The Editors-in-Chief review and approves all submissions to determine whether the submission is approved to be routed for peer review after the manuscript passes the plagiarism check. Once a submission has been accepted for peer review, expert reviewers are asked to assess the merits of the work and provide feedback to communicate to the corresponding author including if revisions be required, the manuscript is accepted, or has been rejected.  

Two to three peer reviewers are assigned to each paper. Two peer reviewers must accept the paper for publication, or provide commentary for revisions requiring a resubmission. If we do not possess board expertise to conduct a review, we will ask the author for suggestions for expert reviewers, and invite them to act as expert guest reviewer for the submission. This will likely delay the review process. The managing editor will inform authors to expect delays if inviting a guest reviewer is required.

BHTY strives to ensure peer review is fair, unbiased and timely. All manuscripts and associated material submitted to BHTY remain confidential while under review. BHTY endeavors to review manuscripts within 14 business days of submission. Reviews for subsequent rounds are also 14 days.

BHTY Peer Review is anonymous and double blind. All manuscripts submitted for publication undergo peer review including those submitted by editorial board members, regular columns, features and op/eds, and themed issues. Editor and publisher letters, and Prediction articles do not undergo peer review.

Rejections

The Managing Dditor will reject a submission if a manuscript is poorly formatted, scholalrly communication in English is deficient, lacks substantiating claims, appears to have large portions plagiarized, has citation errors or is not referenced in the Vancouver style. In most cases, the Managing Editor will recommend correction(s). Editors-in-Chief will reject a submission that rehashes general information already in the public domain. If peer reviewers reject a mauscript, the Managing Editor will alert the corresponding author and send blinded reveiwer comments expaining why the manuscript was rejected.  Previously published materials and white papers are not acceptable unless COPE guidelines are strictly followed. Contact the managing editor with questions at j.russo@partnersindigitalhealth.com

Reviewer’s check list

Reviewers are selected based on expertise in blockchain, DLT platforms and related intersecting technologies. BHTY reviewers are expected to recuse themselves if they have a potential competing interest, including the following:

  • Prior or current collaborations with the author(s) if known
  • Reviewer is a direct competitor
  • Reviewer may have a known history of antipathy with the author(s)
  • Reviewer may profit financially from the work

Reviewers will not accept a peer review invitation should a conflict exist and will decline the review invitation whereby the managing editor will invite an alternate reviewer.

Writing the review

The purpose of the review is to provide the Editors-in-Chief and managing editor with expert opinion regarding the quality of the manuscript, and supply authors with clear and concise feedback on how to improve papers so that they may be acceptable for publication.

All comments are communicated to the author by the Managing Editor. Reviewers are asked to consider the following when reviewing a submission:

  • What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?
  • Are these claims novel? If not, specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.
  • Are claims properly placed in the context of previous literature?
  • Do results support claims? If not, what other evidence is required?
  • Would other experiments or information improve the paper? Would it significantly improve the paper to do more work?
  • Is the paper outstanding in its discipline? What makes it so? If not, why?
  • Who would find this paper of interest? Why?
  • Does it suit the journal’s audience?
  • If the paper is unsuitable for publication in its present form, is there potential to encourage the author to resubmit a revised version?

Reviewers are asked to be matter of fact, clear and concise.

Will authors know who is reviewing their manuscript?

Reviewers’ identities are anonymous.

Can authors exclude Editorial Board Reviewers or Independent Reviewers?

Yes, authors can request to exclude a specific reviewer from reviewing their manuscript as long as BHTY peer review process remains intact and a thorough assessment of the article is given. A decision letter is sent to the author when all reviews are received and considered by the Managing Editor.

Revisions

The Managing Editor and Reviewers assess revised manuscripts. Manuscripts that undergo major revision are re-reviewed to insure all reveiwers' comments were addressed, revisions submitted and/or explanations provided. There is no guarantee of acceptance after major revision. Revisions are generally requested if a manuscript is considered appropriate. Minor revisions are usually requested as a final step before acceptance.

Editorial decisions

Should reviewers reject the submission or resubmission, the Managing Editor may alert the Editors-in-Chief (EICs) to determine whether the EICs believe the submission warrants publication and benefits the sector. The Editors-in-Chief and Managing Editor will, together, make a decision based on the reviewers' comments, and may contact the reveiwers to discuss in more depth. EIC decisions are final.

Appeals

To appeal a decision, you can contact the Managing Editor and explain your reason(s) for the appeal. When a paper has been revised in response to the review, or when authors appeal against a decision, we ask reviewers to provide follow-up commentary.

All appeals are discussed with the Editors-in-Chief and reviewers assigned to the submission.  In the case of disagreement, BHTY may seek external advice on the appeal, but it is most likely the final decision will be left to the Editors-in-Chief.

Only one appeal will be considered. The Editors-in Chief decision will be final.

Proofs and reprints

Corresponding authors of accepted submissions are sent galley proofs with final queries for production.. Corrections should be relayed to the Managing Editor as soon as possible to facilitate publication. The corresponding author will receive an invoice for the APC during this time. Manuscripts are published upon receipt of payment.

Reprints may be ordered once published with a request send to the publisher at t.cenaj@partnersindigitalhealth.com

Reviewing Feature article and Opinion submissions

BHTY reviewers are asked to review these submissions considering the following:

  • Is the article relevant and of interest to an international audience?
  • Does it address a global and topical subject? Will it be relevant across demographic populations?
  • Is the article well written, clear, and easy for a non-specialist?
  • Does the reviewer think the article will impact clinicians, researchers, health policymakers, or the public? Will it be widely read, disseminated, or cited? Could it improve public and/or global health? Will media outlets find it news worthy?
  • Is the article accurate? Are claims evidence-based?
  • Has the author missed anything important?
  • Does the article contain new information warranting publication? Does it take a discussion or debate into a new direction? Does it challenge current legacies?
  • Is it written in a scholarly format? Is it referenced?
  • If tables and figures are included, do they help the reader, or hinder topic and focus? How can they be improved?

Appeals

For feature/opinion articles, BHTY editorial judgment for readability and engagement is decidedly important. An appeal is less likely to overturn a BHTY editorial decision for feature/opinion articles. Authors are welcome to submit a detailed rebuttal letter. Only one appeal will be considered. The Editor-in Chief’s decision will be final.

 

Disclosure of Unlabeled Use

Articles published by BHTY may contain information and discussions of published and/or investigational uses of devices and agents that are not indicated by the Food and Drug Administrations (FDA).  Partners in Digital Health, publisher of BHTY, does not recommend the use of any device or agent outside lawful and labeled indications.

Policy on content validation

  1. All the recommendations involving clinical medicine must be based on evidence that is accepted within the profession of medicine as adequate justification for their indications and contraindications in the care of animals and patients
  2. All scientific research referred to, reported, or used in a patient care recommendation must conform to accepted standards of experimental design, protocols, data collection and analysis

Patient consent

As recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/). Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, 01/02/2018.  Available from: http://www.ICMJE.org., authors will ensure the guidelines below are followed. BHTY has quoted the text below from ICMJE Protection of Research Participants for authors to know and follow:

"Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information, including patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that a patient who is identifiable be shown the manuscript to be published.

Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, however, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is usually inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note. When informed consent has been obtained it should be indicated in the submitted article."

Statistical analyses

Ensure the methodology has been accurately described for statistical analysis. Include details and access to original data to verify results. Provide confidence levels, and define terms and symbols.  Include software used. In comparative studies, power calculations are usually required. In research manuscripts, requiring complex statistics, the advice of an expert statistician should be sought at the design/implementation stage of the study. It is appropriate to include statisticians as co-authors. Should you have further questions, please contact the managing editor.

Publication Ethics

Data sharing and reproducibility

BHTY time stamps all articles, meta data and supplementary research data submitted on the distributed ledger in partnership with Artifacts.ai and provides authors with a custom dashboard to independently manage to add additional research. BHTY encourages all authors around the globe to openly share data for purposes of reproducibility. BHTY also asks authors and readers to share articles to encourage broadening the sector’s knowledge base.

BHTY suggests authors include a data sharing statement when making a submission explaining:

  • What additional unpublished data from the study is available
  • Who can access the data and how can it be obtained

BHTY encourages uploading code at Code Ocean, a cloud-based computational reproducibility platform. We encourage you to include your code with your manuscript submission for peer review, as well as publish this code to share with all upon article acceptance.

In addition, Dryad has declared its willingness to accept medical datasets.

IP

The copyright owner retains all rights to IP, patents, and trademarks for their work(s). All rights to the owner of IP, patents and trademarks are retained by the owner. Sharing articles for professional and personal use is strongly encouraged.

Post publication discussion and corrections

BHTY encourages collegiate discourse and transparency to assist the expansion of the body of knowledge and understanding within and beyond the sector. This can only be achieved with the highest ethical principles for education and science.

Ethical Publishing Practices

Submitted manuscripts should be exclusively submitted to BHTY, with the understanding they have not been published elsewhere, in any form, and will not be submitted elsewhere, unless declined by BHTY. Authors are responsible for all statements made in the article and references cited.

Plagiarism detection

BHTY is a member CrossRef and Similarity Check, iThenticate. The Similarity Check plagiarism tool is used to verify originality of content. The Managing Editor screens all manuscripts upon submission for originality. If plagiarized content is identified, the submission will be returned by the Managing Editor with comment(s), or rejected outright.

Misconduct - for details see https://blockchainhealthcaretoday.com/index.php/journal/ethics

BHTY strives to abide by the guidelines and standards prescribed by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), its Code of Conduct, and its Best Practice Guidelines.

  • Authors are expected to be aware of, and comply with, best practice in publication ethics specifically but not limited to, dual submission, plagiarism, manipulation of figures, competing interests, and compliance with policies on research ethics.
  • Reviewers and editors are required to treat manuscripts fairly and in confidence, and to declare competing interests.

BHTY will investigate allegations of misconduct and will contact author institutions, funders or regulatory bodies, as needed.

BHTY will follow COPE flowcharts and seek guidance as per COPE recommendations on resolving issues that may arise. Evidence of misconduct may require corrective action by issuing a correction or retraction.

Address concerns regarding misconduct to a journal Editor-in-Chief, Publisher, or Managing Editor, at info@partnersindigitalhealth.com. We will address the issue with all appropriate person(s) as soon as possible, and send responses to confirm receipt of alleged misconduct.

Additional resources on publication ethics are available from COPE, ICMJE, and WAME