Western Journal of Emergency Medicine

What Western Journal of Emergency Medicine does

Western Journal of Emergency Medicine (WestJEM) is a peer-reviewed, open-access academic journal in the field of emergency medicine, founded in 2000 as the California Journal of Emergency Medicine (CalJEM) and rebranded to WestJEM in August 2007 to expand beyond California. It is operated by the Department of Emergency Medicine at UC Irvine Health School of Medicine and published via the University of California's eScholarship open-access repository, which supplies editorial review workflow, journal management, and PDF distribution. The publication targets academic emergency physicians, residency programs, and clinical practitioners, with a stated editorial focus on how healthcare systems and delivery affect health, health disparities, and population health outcomes.

The product surface comprises two companion journals — WestJEM (the flagship, ranked 14th of 35 general emergency medicine journals worldwide in Clarivate's 2024 Expanded Index with a 2-year Impact Factor of 2.0) and CPC-EM (Case Reports and Images in Emergency Medicine) — alongside multimedia (clinical images and videos), an Academic Job Board, and Continuing Medical Education (CME) content. Distribution is multi-channel: eScholarship repository, PubMed Central, DOAJ, Medscape, Google Scholar, and ISSUU interactive issues, with social-media reach tracked via a partnership with Altmetric. The journal is indexed in MEDLINE, PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, CINAHL, and the Directory of Open Access Journals, with submissions sourced from 200 countries and hundreds of thousands of annual online views.

The business model is a non-profit academic publishing model under the University of California system. Sources indicate article processing fees apply per manuscript on a pay-as-you-go basis under a CC-BY open-access license, though one source notes the website does not visibly charge fees — a conflict that suggests direct fee revenue is inconsistent. Revenue is supplemented by institutional and professional society sponsorship from the American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physicians (ACOEP), California ACEP, California Chapter of AAEM, and UC Irvine Health School of Medicine. The company has 11-50 employees, is headquartered in Orange, California, and has no disclosed equity ownership, venture backing, or funding rounds.

Name

Western Journal of Emergency Medicine

Legal name

WestJEM / eScholarship University of California

Website

https://westjem.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2000

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

WestJEM is a peer-reviewed, open-access emergency medicine journal published via the University of California's eScholarship repository, serving academic emergency physicians, residency programs, and clinician researchers globally. It operates under UC Irvine Health with sponsorship from ACOEP, California ACEP, and CAL AAEM.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Academic Medical Journal Publishing

NAICS

Periodical Publishers (513120)

SIC

Periodicals: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2721)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYMPAJABAC

Academic & Scholarly Journals Publishing (Peer-Reviewed)

Media, Entertainment & Sports/Publishing (Books, News, Magazines)/Educational & Academic Publishing (Textbooks, Scholarly, STM)

SECONDARYMPAJABAD

STM Publishing (Science, Technical & Medical)

Media, Entertainment & Sports/Publishing (Books, News, Magazines)/Educational & Academic Publishing (Textbooks, Scholarly, STM)

Keywords

• Emergency medicine journal
• Open access publishing
• Peer reviewed research
• Academic medical publishing
• Scholarly journal platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Orange

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Article Processing Fees: Authors pay article processing fees for publication in the open-access journal. The journal also receives support from professional society sponsors including ACOEP, CAL ACEP, and CAL AAEM.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Western Journal of Emergency Medicine (WestJEM) is a peer-reviewed, open-access academic journal that publishes original research, case reports, and clinical content focused on emergency medicine systems, healthcare delivery, health disparities, and population health outcomes. The journal operates a dual-journal publishing platform alongside its companion publication CPC-EM (Case Reports and Images in Emergency Medicine), hosted on the University of California's eScholarship repository, and generates revenue through article processing fees and professional society sponsorships from ACOEP, CAL ACEP, CAL AAEM, and UC Irvine Health School of Medicine.

Product overview

The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine operates a dual-journal open-access publishing platform comprising WestJEM (the flagship general emergency medicine journal, ranked 14th of 35 worldwide with a 2-year Impact Factor of 2.0) and CPC-EM (Case Reports and Images in Emergency Medicine), both hosted via UC Irvine's eScholarship repository. The platform supports article publishing, multimedia content (clinical images and videos), an academic job board, and continuing medical education. The journals are sponsored by professional societies including ACOEP, California ACEP, California Chapter AAEM, and UC Irvine Health School of Medicine.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• CPC-EM (Case Report and Images in Emergency Medicine): A related journal publication focusing on case reports and images in emergency medicine, with its own ISSN (2474-252X) and submission guidelines.

Products and services

• Western Journal of Emergency Medicine (WestJEM) A peer-reviewed, open-access emergency medicine journal published by eScholarship at UC Irvine, ranked 14th of 35 general emergency medicine journals worldwide in Clarivate's 2024 Expanded Index with a 2-year Impact Factor of 2.0. Serves academic emergency physicians, residency programs, and clinical practitioners worldwide with submissions from 200 countries.
• Case Reports and Images in Emergency Medicine (CPC-EM) A companion open-access journal focused on case reports and clinical images in emergency medicine, published alongside WestJEM through eScholarship with its own ISSN (2474-252X) and submission guidelines. Targets emergency medicine clinicians and educators seeking peer-reviewed visual and case-based clinical content.
• Academic Job Board A faculty recruitment board serving the emergency medicine academic community, hosted on the WestJEM platform for posting and discovering academic positions in emergency medicine departments.
• Continuing Medical Education (CME) Continuing medical education credits available through selected journal content, supporting professional development and licensure requirements for emergency medicine practitioners.
• WestJEM Climate Change Special Issue A topic-focused special issue of the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine publishing peer-reviewed research on climate change and its impact on emergency medicine practice and population health outcomes.

Quantifiable outcome

• Submissions grew from 11 per month to 22 per month within two years of transformation into WestJEM
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physicians (ACOEP)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2010ACOEP became the first national emergency medicine organization to support WestJEM, representing a historic milestone as the first journal with both osteopathic and allopathic organization sponsorship.
• California Chapter of American College of Emergency Physicians (CAL ACEP)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 July 2009WestJEM entered into a sponsorship agreement with CAL ACEP to become the official journal of Cal/ACEP. The agreement included CAL ACEP's logo placement on the journal and advisory board participation, representing a historic collaboration between two competing emergency medicine organizations.
• UC Irvine Health School of MedicinecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerUC Irvine Health provides institutional hosting and support for WestJEM, including editorial staff and infrastructure. The Department of Emergency Medicine serves as the journal's institutional base.
• California Chapter of American Academy of Emergency Medicine (CAL AAEM)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCAL AAEM is the founding organization that originally launched CalJEM in 2000, which later transformed into WestJEM. The organization continues as a key professional society sponsor.
• eScholarship University of CaliforniacoreTechnology or IntegrationeScholarship provides the open-access publishing platform, journal management system, and editorial review process infrastructure for WestJEM content distribution.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Emerging players

• Cureus: Open-access medical publishing platform with an emergency medicine channel; comparable as an OA, author-paid publishing model targeting clinicians, though broader in scope than WestJEM.

Broad incumbents

• PLOS ONE: Large-scale open-access mega-journal across all scientific disciplines; comparable OA/APC publishing model and could absorb EM submissions seeking rapid publication.
• JAMA Network Open: Open-access general medical journal from JAMA Network; competes indirectly with WestJEM for OA-ready research submissions, including EM-relevant population health and systems work.

Direct peers

• The Journal of Emergency Medicine: Peer-reviewed clinical EM journal published by Elsevier; competes for clinical and research manuscripts in the same emergency medicine author pool as WestJEM.
• Academic Emergency Medicine: Official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM); a direct competitor for academic EM submissions, with a higher Impact Factor than WestJEM.
• BMC Emergency Medicine: Open-access EM journal published by BMC/Springer Nature; closest open-access peer to WestJEM with overlapping author pool and similar APC-based monetization model.
• Annals of Emergency Medicine: The flagship peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP); directly competes with WestJEM for EM research submissions and readership, and is one of the higher-IF titles in the field.
• Emergency Medicine Journal: BMJ's flagship emergency medicine title; directly comparable to WestJEM as a peer-reviewed EM journal targeting similar international clinical and academic audiences.

Others

• Medscape Emergency Medicine: Major clinical news and education portal for EM practitioners that republishes WestJEM content via its Medscape WestJEM channel; comparable as a dissemination channel for EM clinicians rather than a direct publication competitor.
• eScholarship (University of California): Open-access repository and publishing platform operated by the University of California that hosts WestJEM; relevant as infrastructure peer and a potential launchpad for additional OA journals that could compete for the same editorial base.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Instagraminstagram.com/drivesobersocal?igshid=YTQwZjQ0NmI0OA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Facebookfacebook.com/westjem
• Xx.com/westjem

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Western Journal of Emergency Medicine