Introduction: The year-2015 can be unequivocally called a “watershed-moment” in the management of acute-stroke secondary to large-vessel-occlusion. Recent-years have seen increase in the number of Neuro-endovascualr fellowship training programs . It is important to objectively measure the academic productivity of Neuroendovascualr fellowship programs. In our current-study we used H-index(figure-1) based metrices to assess the academic output of Neuroendovascualr fellowship-programs across United-States.

Methods: Information about Neuroendovascular-fellwoship-programs was obtained from AANS-fellowship directory, ACGME and CAST (Committee-on Advanced-Subspecialty-Training) (Figure-1). The bibliometric-data was gathered from the Thomson’s Reuters “Web of Science” database. Each publication from the department was screened and those publications that catered to cerebrovascular domain were included in the H-index of the program and H-index of last 10 yrs(H-10). Similarly, H index of individual faculty was calculated. Departmental H index was subjected to quartile analysis. Neuro-endovascular-programs falling in the >=75th percentile were labeled as “higher” H index centers. Correlation analysis was done with these “Higher” H-index centers with other parameters like affiliation with comprehensive stroke center, number of faculty, accreditation status, “highest” H index of faculty.

Results: 38-out-of-52 Neuro-endovascular programs were analyzed in detail(Figure-1).18-centers were accredited with either CAST-or-ACGME and 24 were associated with comprehensive-stroke-center. The mean departmental H index for unaccredited-fellowship was 27.40(median:20.50; SD21.89) and for Accredited-Fellowships it was 21.11(Median:13.00 and SD17.38) however, the difference was not significant (p=.38 Mann-Whitney U Wilcoxon ). Spearman-correlation analysis showed that there was significant correlation (p=0.032) between the number-of-faculty and affiliation with comprehensive-stroke-center.However, increase in the number of faculty had no-correlation with program-H-index. “Higher”-H index correlated significantly(p<0.001) with program faculty’s(highest-H –index-of-faculty)(Figure 2).Summing, the top five Neuro-endovascular-programs were: Stanford University, SUNY Buffalo, UCSF(University-of-california-San-Francisco) , UCLA(Univ-of California-Los-Angeles and Johns-Hopkins-University(Figure-3).

Conclusions: This study represents the most detailed publication analysis of academic Neuroendovascular fellowship programs to date. The results for the metrics presented should be viewed as benchmarks for comparison purposes.Departmental H index pertaining specifically to the cerebrovascular realm provides better understanding of the academic productivity of endovascular fellowship programs. The correlation is stronger when the period of productivity is limited to a recent decade(h10) and with the facuty’s highest H-index.

Patient Care: 1)This study will improve the understanding of academic productivity of Neuro-endovascualr fellowship programs 2)Ongoing evaluations of academic attributes using the h index may also prove to be a useful indicator of where neuroendovascular programs have been and may predict where they are headed.

Learning Objectives: By the conclusion of this session, participants should be able to 1) understand the bibilometric H index 2)The academic productivity of various Neuro-endovascular programs

References: 1. Khan NR, Thompson CJ, Taylor DR, Venable GT, Wham RM, Michael LM, et al: An analysis of publication productivity for 1225 academic neurosurgeons and 99 departments in the United States. J Neurosurg 120:746–755, 2014 2. Spearman CM, Quigley MJ, Quigley MR, Wilberger JE: Survey of the h index for all of academic neurosurgery: another power-law phenomenon? J Neurosurg 113:929–933, 2010 3. Taylor DR, Venable GT, Jones GM, Lepard JR, Roberts ML, Saleh N, et al: Five-year institutional bibliometric profiles for 103 US neurosurgical residency programs. J Neurosurg 123:547–560, 2015