It is a truism that journals are created to be read and that scientific articles are published in order to spread and share knowledge and opinions. The impact factor (IF) is an index of the extent to which these objectives are achieved. The IF reflects the visibility of scientific publications and is based on the number of citations received in other journals with an IF. Although the equation “visibility is equal to quality” is not universally valid, being indexed in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), in which the most prestigious scientific journals are found, is a goal to be achieved by any journal. The journal Farmacia Hospitalaria (Farm Hosp) is aware of these aspects and has placed visibility as a key strategy in its development.

In 2018, Farm Hosp was included in the REDIB journals collections, Bibliovigilance, and in the Sherpa/Romeo and Dulcinea Open Access initiatives for international and national journals, respectively. It has also been included in the EBSCO database and the MIAR index.

According to editorial process monitoring data, 158 and 130 manuscripts were received in 2017 and 2018, respectively, and 56.12% of them were published. Only 4.32% were submitted by non -Spanish authors and 90.65% of the authors who published their articles in Farm Hosp were not associated with the Editorial Board. In total, 49.82% of the manuscripts were rejected by the referees and the editor.

In 2018, the average time of the editorial process was 20 weeks, and the average time between final acceptance and bilingual publication was 13 weeks.

Between January 2017 and September 2018, the Farm Hosp website received 142 656 visits. Although most of these visits were from Spain, 5.10% came from Latin America, 4.27% from European countries, and 0.98% from other countries. The four Latin American countries with the most visits were Mexico (7.0%), Colombia (5.3%), Peru (3.9%), and Argentina (3.3%).

It is a proven fact that social media are ideal tools to rapidly spread content and ideas. Thus, in the last 18 months, our Twitter account (@farm_ hosp) had 2637 followers, 875 monthly visits, and an average of 62 new followers per month.

The strategic plan of the Spanish Society of Hospital Pharmacy includes partnerships with other scientific societies in order to share knowledge and highlight the excellent professional work of hospital pharmacists. In this regard, in 2018, we published various consensus documents in collaboration with the Spanish Society of Urology, the Spanish Society of Ophthalmology, the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology, and the Spanish Society of Oncology Nursing, as well as an editorial with the SEMICYUC (the Spanish Society of Intensive Critical Care and Coronary Units). To standardize the publication of these documents, the publication guidelines were updated.

Since 2018, the entire content of the journal has been published in Spanish and English. The website clearly shows the language options such that the readers can select their preferred language and download the article in pdf format. To improve visibility, a section has been added with clear instructions on how to cite the articles. This will ensure that the citations made by other authors are correct.

The types of article that are typically published in Farm Hosp have been classified to help authors select the most appropriate section for their article. In this way, the Editorial Board can select a referee with a suitable level of expertise in the selected area, which will undoubtedly result in a high-quality review. Currently, a drop-down menu is being implemented on the platform to enable this selection process.

Despite these promising statistics and outlook, we still need to improve the visibility of our journal, and to succeed in this we all need to get involved. Hence, the title of this editorial.

Although hospital pharmacy is a relatively new specialty, the specialists working in this field are very interested in conducting research. Sharing their results with colleagues is typical in Pharmacy Services, regardless of the hospitals’ level of care. However, in such a fiercely competitive world, (“publish or perish”), authors want their work to reach the widest possible audience and to be published and recognized in the highest impact journals: thus, they tend to shy away from those without an IF or with a low IF. This results in a vicious circle that prevents journals that are not in the JCR from ever being included in this index. In contrast, those included benefit from yet more publications and in turn receive more citations. We need our authors to break this vicious circle by sending quality manuscripts to Farm Hosp such that they can eventually be cited in the best journals. We are confident that this symbiosis will be mutually beneficial.

The final objective of the Editorial Board of Farm Hosp is to publish articles of the highest scientific interest for professional practice and thus increase its quality. In the long run, this approach will lead to an IF. A large part of the quality of an article rests on good peer review, an aspect which is understood and applied by other prestigious journals. Good reviewing not only involves a detailed analysis of the formal and methodological aspects of the article in question, but also counts on fluid communication with the journal editors (e.g. communicating acceptance or rejection in a timely manner) to improve the editorial process.

To date, there are 153 reviewers in our database. In 2018, 102 reviewers were asked to review articles. Of these, 64 reviewers accepted the offer, whereas the remainder did not tacitly or explicitly agree to revise the articles. Each manuscript has been reviewed by an average of 2.45 reviewers. In total, 35 reviewers conducted one review per year, 15 conducted two reviews, 12 conducted three reviews, one conducted four reviews, and one conducted six reviews.

Our reviewers work mainly in public hospitals (83.5%). The others either work in private hospitals (6.86%) or at universities and in other areas of the public sector. To help standardisation and improve the quality of the peer review process, the reviewers are offered a training course. Two editions of the course were run in 2017, another in April 2018, and a fourth edition is scheduled for March of this year.

At this point, it would be unfair to not explicitly thank the referees for their invaluable help. The quality of our journal depends to an enormous degree on their silent and altruistic work.

The current managing editors of the journal and the Editorial Board had a very clear priority from the beginning: to be included in the JCR and to be awarded an IF. Apart from the routine, but no less important, editorial tasks of any journal, the managing editors and the Editorial Board have worked hard to achieve this goal, by seeking out well-established authors, ensuring and preserving the quality of manuscripts, and making the necessary contacts. This is a worthy goal and we will continue to make every effort to achieve it.

We think we are on the right track, and the first goal is to be included in the JCR. However, we do not want to stop there. The next challenge will be to position our journal as a benchmark publication among the best in the world of hospital pharmacy. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, “The whole world stands back from a person who knows where he is going.” And we know where we are going.