As We Start a New Journey Together
At the recent 131st AAIM Annual meeting several significant changes were announced for the Journal of Insurance Medicine. The Journal has been a vital cog in relaying significant mortality and morbidity information to our members since the beginning of our organization. While it started many years ago as a compilation of the presentations given at the annual meeting as the Proceedings of the American Life Insurance Medical Directors Association or ALIMDA in book form it later transformed into a quarterly print journal. Many of the past authors have been the giants in our industry and the past editors read like a who’s who of insurance medical directors. With the retirement of our past editor Ross MacKenzie MD from full time editing duties, AAIM president Tim Steffen commissioned a task group with several goals in seeking to update and revitalize the Journal. The Journal Advisory Group met frequently in 2023 and developed several major changes in addition to recruiting a new editorial staff. These changes have since been approved by the AAIM Executive Council and were revealed at the 2023 Annual Meeting.
Leading the JIM into this new horizon is Dr. Rod Richie. Rod is well known to most members from his time as an instructor at the Triennial meetings and frequent lecturer at industry meetings. In addition, many of our experienced members stepped up to volunteer as new Associate Editors. You are directed to the title page of the Journal for a complete listing.
The second major objective of the JAG was to increase manuscript submissions. To that end the AAIM President and Vice President were commissioned with ex-officio duties to encourage article submissions. We have also added a new position which is designed to build relationships with clinical physicians, especially those in fellowship positions as it was deemed as a pool of potential authors that is seriously untapped.
The last major change was to increase JIM readership. To that end we are moving to an open access subscription, which means that our articles we be available to everyone, not just those with an AAIM subscription. For AAIM members you will receive an email with a “one click” availability of JIM with no further need for passwords or complicated sign in procedures. For the general public, having availability to our literature will enhance our footprint, thus being attractive to outside authors, and increasing our visibility via PUB MED.
It our belief that these changes will lead well as we begin this next phase of the Journal of Insurance Medicine. I strongly encourage you to read and contribute to OUR Journal!