Analyzing the Spread of Informatics with PubMed

Area of Science:

• Medical and Health Informatics
• Bibliometrics
• International Collaboration

Background:

• Understanding the global spread of medical and health informatics is crucial for advancing healthcare.
• Analyzing publication trends reveals patterns in knowledge dissemination and adoption.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the dissemination of medical/health informatics concepts globally since 1988.
• To identify top publishing countries and analyze trends in informatics literature.
• To assess the impact of informatics on mainstream medical and radiology publications.

Main Methods:

• PubMed citation analysis from 1988 onwards.
• Extraction and analysis of country data from author affiliations.
• Identification of top 10 informatics publishing countries.
• Trend analysis of publication similarity and inter-country exchange.

Main Results:

• Informatics publications exhibit increasing similarity over time.
• Electronic publishing has accelerated the exchange of informatics concepts between countries.
• The top 10 informatics publishing countries were identified and analyzed.
• Core informatics concepts have minimal impact on mainstream medicine and radiology, excluding machine learning.

Conclusions:

• Global collaboration and knowledge exchange in health informatics have intensified.
• The integration of informatics into clinical practice remains a challenge, despite technological advancements.
• Machine learning represents a notable exception, demonstrating greater impact within medical domains.