Preparing Your MPOG Manuscript

Once you have completed your research project and are ready to submit your manuscript for publication, please review the following guidelines prior to journal submission.

Step 1: MPOG Manuscript Checklist

When your manuscript is ready to be circulated to the PCRC, fill out the MPOG Manuscript checklist. This checklist includes running the manuscript through a plagiarism detection software. Send the completed checklist with a copy of your manuscript and name of the intended journal to mpog-research@med.umich.edu.

The MPOG Central team will send a copy of the manuscript, approved PCRC proposal, and the link for a Qualtrics collaborator survey to active MPOG sites. This allows members of the PCRC to review your manuscript to ensure that it meets the aims of your approved proposal, and provide suggestions for any final improvements to the manuscript. Additionally, the Qualtrics survey allows PCRC members to voice their interest in being listed as a collaborator, and attest to meeting at least one International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria as described below.

Step 2: Authorship

Through participating in the MPOG PCRC process, it is common for resulting manuscripts to have authors from multiple institutions outside of the research PI’s home institution. MPOG typically recommends that researchers consider including the following individuals as named byline co-authors:

1. Members of the primary author’s research team, at the discretion of primary author
2. PCRC Moderator
3. Primary author’s site Anesthesia IT champion
4. For proposals seeking integrated surgical registry data (e.g. STS, NSQIP): Primary author’s site Surgery Clinical Champion or Committed Surgery Faculty designated by Surgery Clinical Champion
5. MPOG coordinating center faculty or staff who provided major guidance to author’s research team in regard to study design, data element selection, and data quality consideration (if applicable)
6. Faculty or staff at MPOG institutions who had notable large scientific contributions during the PCRC meeting or on the Google Doc and were involved in preparation of the final manuscript.

Additionally, MPOG follows ICMJE website guidelines for authors of submitted manuscripts. ICMJE states that authors must satisfy ALL four of the following criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Step 3: Collaboratorship

Collaboratorship is the second category for recognition of contribution to a work, specifically for individuals who do not fulfill all ICMJE authorship criteria listed in the previous step. Collaborators are individuals who contributed significantly to the work, such as through the comments in the Google Doc for a proposal, verbal ideas during the PCRC meeting, or provided meaningful written contribution to the work. For specific proposals, collaborators often include site data validation and IT champions, the PCRC Moderator (if they do not meet the aforementioned authorship criteria) and PCRC members from various MPOG institutions. PCRC members from active institutions at the time of the original proposal presentation are invited by the MPOG Central team to fill out a Qualtrics survey, so that they can be attest to meeting at least one ICMJE criteria, and added to a collaborator recognition section in the published manuscript.

Step 4: Funding Statement

Due to BCBSM financial support of MPOG’s quality goals, we request that all MPOG manuscripts include the following funding statement:

Funding was provided by departmental and institutional resources at each contributing site. In addition, partial funding to support underlying electronic health record data collection into the Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group registry was provided by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan/Blue Care Network as part of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan/Blue Care Network Value Partnerships program. Although Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan/Blue Care Network and Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group work collaboratively, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan/Blue Care Network or any of its employees.

Step 5: Data Sharing Statement

For journals requesting open access to your manuscript’s data, we recommend that the following statement be included:

The datasets involved in this study are defined as limited datasets per United States Federal Regulations and require execution of a data use agreement for transfer or use of the data. They are derived from data shared within the Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group (MPOG). The investigative team is able to share data securely and transparently conditional on: (i) receipt of a detailed written request identifying the requestor, purpose and proposed use of the shared data, (ii) use of a secure enclave for the sharing of personally identifiable information and (iii) the request is permissible within the confines of existing data use agreements executed between MPOG members.