Scholarly communication between health informatics and information systems: A bibliometric study

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Information Systems
• Information Systems in Healthcare

Background:

• Information Systems (IS) and Health Informatics (HI) share research interests in health information systems (HIS) adoption.
• Despite overlapping interests, IS and HI serve different academic audiences and theorize IT artifacts differently.
• Investigating the relationship between IS and HI research in HIS is crucial for understanding knowledge transfer.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the dyadic relationship between Health Information Systems (HIS) research in Information Systems (IS) and Health Informatics (HI).
• To examine communication patterns and citation analysis between IS and HI journals concerning HIS research from 2000-2020.
• To identify the extent to which IS research influences HI literature and vice versa.

Main Methods:

• Citation analysis of Health Information Systems (HIS) research.
• Analysis of HIS publications in Information Systems (IS) and Health Informatics (HI) journals.
• Quantitative assessment of interdisciplinary communication patterns between 2000 and 2020.

Main Results:

• Communication between IS and HI fields regarding HIS research is limited and topic-specific.
• IS research on HIS has not been sufficiently recognized or incorporated into the HI literature.
• An upward trend in HIS publications within IS suggests a growing potential for IS to contribute to HI.

Conclusions:

• There is a need to enhance interdisciplinary communication and knowledge integration between IS and HI researchers.
• IS scholars have the potential to significantly contribute to Health Informatics through greater engagement.
• Future research should focus on bridging the gap between IS and HI to advance HIS adoption and effectiveness.