Abstract
We are now starting to see the world slowly return to some semblance of normal. We are hopeful that we will all be able to see each other in person soon at Global Spine Congress and other events. As we reflect on the first half of the year, we look toward the second half of the year and hope that by the end of the year we will see life move even closer to what it was before the pandemic.
We are proud and excited to announce our first special issue of 2021, “Predictive Analytics and Cost Modeling in Spine Surgery,” which was just recently published. The special issue was sponsored by AO Spine North America and we hope that you will all enjoy reading it. Guest Editor Dr. Daniel Sciubba said of this issue: “The use of big data in spine care is essential. Predictive analytics, patient-specific outcome calculators, and cost-modeling will help inform patients and providers on what is most likely to happen and how much value can be provided as we make tough clinical decisions.” You can access the entire special issue here: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/gsja/11/1_suppl.
As we have discussed throughout the last year, Global Spine Journal (GSJ) has had to be more selective in the articles we are accepting due to the impact factor acceptance. We have had to employ a standard practice of pre-screening/desk rejecting articles upon submission. This practice means that all articles are carefully checked by an Editor upon submission before going through to technical check and review. If the article is on a topic that has already been published in GSJ, does not add anything to the existing literature, or is simply not of the same quality as other submitted articles then the Editor will desk reject the article and it will be sent back to you quickly and without reviewer comments. We want to reiterate that a desk rejection is not a judgment on the quality of your work, but rather it is a comparison of your article to the other submissions we receive. It does not mean that the science is poor, but it could be for a few other reasons—for example, that we already received a similar article to yours but the other study included more patients or had a longer follow-up. Desk rejecting/pre-screening also serves to not waste authors' time; once it is sent back, authors are free to send the manuscript to another journal.
GSJ is a global journal and because of this we want to continue to welcome manuscripts from all over the world. GSJ offers a mentorship program for AO Spine members who need help writing and organizing their research. If you are from one of the AO Spine regions and you need help organizing your research, please contact Managing Editor Danielle Lieberman to set you up with a GSJ Deputy Editor to help you with your paper.
Again, as always, we would like to thank our authors for their patience during this difficult time as COVID-19 did greatly impact the peer-review process due to lack of availability. We hope that as the COVID-19 situation slowly improves throughout the world we will be able to get things back to more of a semblance of normal.