cmaj news: “Starting today, all new Canadian Medical Association Journal content is now freely available online, with older material becoming available on March 1, 2020. Previously, CMAJ research articles, editorials and news stories were freely available, and other content including commentaries and practice articles were only fully available after one year. Dr. Andreas Laupacis, editor-in-chief of the journal, says providing immediate free access to content will make the journal more relevant to discussions about improving Canada’s healthcare system. “Some of the material in CMAJ that is useful to public discussion around important issues with our healthcare system were only available to CMA members and I think they are of broader interest to members of the public, patients and policymakers,” he says. With more accessible content, Laupacis hopes to attract new voices to CMAJ, including those of patients. “It’s hard to say to patients that we want you to be involved in our work, but you have to pay to see it,” he says. The move to fully free content will involve a financial hit for CMAJ’s publisher, Joule, as there are no plans to offset lost subscription revenue by increasing publication fees  — a common way other journals finance open access publishing. According to Laupacis, the company felt that the increase in access justified the lost revenue. The Canadian Medical Association is supportive of the move, says association president Dr. Sandy Buchman. “It’s a great example of how we are trying to operationalize our vision to have an impact on the healthcare system.”