Abstract
Introduction
Launched in July 2025, Respiratory Care Reports is the second official science journal of the American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC) and its first Open Access title. Operated independently from Respiratory Care, it serves the respiratory therapy research community in meaningful ways by expanding opportunities for authors to publish their work and by providing readers with broader access to new discoveries. Designed to complement the flagship journal, it offers an additional platform for sharing knowledge and advancing the field.
How Respiratory Care Reports is different
Respiratory Care Reports is like Respiratory Care in several ways. Both are peer-reviewed science journals. Both publish original research and reviews. But there are also important differences. Respiratory Care Reports expands its focus to include the art of respiratory care practice. Most notable is the publication of case reports. Although low-level evidence, case reports have important teaching value. Respiratory Care Reports will publish clinical case reports in addition to case reports related to education and management. Also published will be commentaries, which are focused opinion articles related to respiratory care. Quality assurance projects and original research related to education and management topics are welcome. The Respiratory Care Education Annual is now integrated into Respiratory Care Reports. Manuscripts selected for the Respiratory Care Education Annual will be collected as a compilation each year.
The evolution of a journal
The launch of a new journal offers the opportunity to reflect on the history of the flagship, Respiratory Care. The two of us have been involved in the editorial leadership of Respiratory Care since the 1980s. Before the year 2000, securing enough material to publish the journal each month was a struggle. Much of the content was contributed by Editorial Board members—in some cases, Editorial Board members collected an entire issue’s content from their institution.1–3 Other creative approaches to generating content included the creation of Journal Conferences, 4 and publishing reviews based on topics presented at the AARC annual congress such as the New Horizons Symposium, 5 honor lectures, 6 and the Journal Symposium. 7 Many issues of the journal had few articles, which were supplemented by publishing content like abstracts from other journals. At times advertising content was nearly as many pages as editorial content.
After many unsuccessful attempts, Respiratory Care was accepted into PubMed by the National Library of Medicine in 2000. This did much to elevate the respectability of the journal. Respiratory Care received its first Impact Factor in 2008. This led to a significant increase in the number of submissions, from about 100 in 2000 to nearly 1000 today. This was accompanied by an increase in the number of original research submissions from fewer than 50 in 2000 to nearly 700 today. This increase in submissions resulted in the journal becoming more selective. Today about 75% of submissions are rejected. Many of these rejections are due to content being outside our editorial interest or methodological flaws identified during peer review. There are others, however, that are low priority and might merit publication if space was available. This opens the potential to transfer these papers to the companion journal Respiratory Care Reports.
The Impact Factor effect
One of the most misunderstood topics in journal publishing is the Impact Factor. 8 The Impact Factor is based solely on the number of citations. If a journal publishes papers that are cited a lot, that journal will have a high Impact Factor, and vice versa. A high Impact Factor brings prestige to a journal, its authors, its professional society sponsor, and its publisher. It is important to appreciate, however, that there is a difference between the Impact Factor and how impactful is a journal. A journal can be very impactful for its readers, and its published content can influence practice. But this will only affect the Impact Factor if the content is cited in other papers. One might argue that highly influential papers are more likely to be cited, but it is not entirely clear that this is the case. Nonetheless, editors strive to publish papers with a high likelihood of being cited. If papers deemed to have a lower likelihood of citation are transferred to a companion journal, in this case Respiratory Care to Respiratory Care Reports, this should increase the Impact Factor of the flagship journal.
Lower levels of evidence have value
In recent years, attention has been directed toward higher levels of evidence such as multi-center randomized controlled trials and meta-analysis of these. This is for good reason, as clinical application of robust high-level evidence leads to better patient outcomes. Bedside clinicians, however, often have difficulty operationalizing the application of this evidence. This is where case reports can have teaching value. Case reports illustrate the unique application of best practice and familiarize the reader with unusual clinical presentations. A well-written case report can also serve as a first experience for a clinician wishing to contribute to the published literature. Thus, lower levels of evidence have value.
For many years, case reports were important to the mix of papers published in Respiratory Care. 9 But many journals, including Respiratory Care, stopped publishing case reports. Case reports are seldom cited and thus can be a drag on the Impact Factor. Respiratory Care Reports will publish clinical, management, and education case reports, making this content again available for authors and readers.
Open access is the future
Respiratory Care Reports is open access with article processing charges. Traditionally, the cost of publishing has been through an allocation from member dues from a professional society, advertising, and institutional subscriptions. Journal content is behind a paywall and is only freely available as a member benefit or a subscriber. Traditional sources of revenue have recently proven increasingly difficult, leading to journals requesting authors support publication of their work through article processing charges. In exchange, authors retain copyright for their work, and the manuscript is published free for all—Open Access. Although this incurs some financial burden for authors, there is the benefit of increased visibility because the manuscript is not hidden behind a paywall. The open access model is likely to expand, with the cost of publication borne by the author rather than the reader. Noteworthy is that article processing charges are lower for Respiratory Care Reports than many other open access journals. 10
In the open access model, authors retain ownership of their work. This promotes dissemination of research findings, eliminating the requirement for subscriptions, and avoiding paywalls. In traditional publishing models, ownership and copyright are transferred to the publisher upon acceptance. Ownership of the published work allows the authors to freely share their work and allows others to read, download, and distribute the material for education and research purposes.
In recent years, there has been a rise in the number of predatory journals.11–13 Predatory journals offer the impression of legitimacy while lacking rigorous peer review and editorial oversight. Predatory journals lack rigorous peer review, feature aggressive solicitation, have low publication standards, have false claims (Impact Factor, indexing, editorial board members), and charge high publication fees. All predatory journals are open access, but not all open access journals are predatory. Respiratory Care Reports is
Summary
We are excited for the launch of Respiratory Care Reports. Respiratory Care Reports will complement what we already publish in Respiratory Care. We welcome your submissions.