Evolutionary Trends in Integrated Care in 2000-2020 in China: A Scientometric Review Using CiteSpace

Owing to an increasing demand for a continuous and coordinated health service, integrated care is being promoted worldwide. Chinese research on integrated care has rapidly increased over the last 20 years. However, popular topics, paths and trends of integrated care research in China have not been systematically summarised. The study aimed to examine the evolution of integrated care research in China and predict future research trends.

We searched for integrated care research in China published 2000-2020 in Chinese (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) and English (Web of Science). Research articles that met the inclusion criteria were selected. CiteSpace 5.7.R3 was used to perform keyword clustering, timeline view and burst detection analyses.

We included 786 Chinese articles and 124 English articles. Chinese articles formed 10 clusters with 1814 keywords. English articles formed 5 clusters with 487 keywords. From 2000 to 2020, integrated care research in China comprised three stages: (1) In the start-up stage (2000-2007), keywords mainly focus on medical resource integration and two-way referral; (2) In the emergence stage (2008-2015), keywords primarily include integrated model, benefits of integration, paths to integration and incentive mechanisms; (3) In the maturation stage (2016-2020), the main keywords are patient preferences, shared management mechanisms, symbiosis theory, value-based care, payment methods and people-oriented care.

With increasing health care system reform, popular integrated care research topics in the next stage will likely focus on people-oriented integrated care, service value and payment method reform. Academic research on integrated care in China will help to shape and lead policymaking.

Integrated care research in China has gone through three stages over the last two decades. In the future, integrated care theory in China will be informed by concepts from other fields, such as value co-creation in public management, to address the current problem of lack of synthesis in integrated care in China.