With the COVID19 pandemic, the world is changing drastically. Almost all facets of our lives are affected, at both macro and micro levels. In these unprecedented times academic journals, such as Emergency Medicine Australasia (EMA), have a crucial role and that is to ensure that relevant research findings and data are readily and speedily available to those who need them. Clinical data, research, objective reports from clinicians, opinion and perspective pieces are the manuscript categories that will be important to readers. 

Without any change to the usual academic standards leading to manuscript acceptance, EMA has adopted two new processes for fast track publication of accepted COVID19 content. 

1. Accepted papers will be published online in a basic raw PDF format within two to three days of acceptance. This version will be replaced by a properly proofed and typeset version when it is ready, usually about two to three weeks from acceptance.

2. All accepted COVID19 papers will be published in a Virtual Issue, available to everyone and free to access. The Virtual Issue will be updated every two weeks and will be available online indefinitely. 

The Virtual Issue’s first publication is from the Alfred Hospital ED in Melbourne. A team there is collecting a dataset of clinical data for patients with COVID19. The data will be updated fortnightly. Other early content is a Perspective piece asking if there are any lessons from Ebola outbreaks, a Perspective piece about the challenge of managing a patient with spinal cord injury and a Letter to the Editor about the challenge of managing patients with acute behavioural disturbance.

Geoff Hughes, Emergency Medicine Australasia, Editor-in-Chief

Related Podcast Episodes

EMA Short Report introducing / discussing the COVED Project and its Protocol

EMA Results Publication (COVED-1)

COVED Podcast 3: “REC-1”

For more information about the COVED Quality Improvement Project click here.