A bibliometric analysis of the advance of artificial intelligence in medicine

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into medicine has ushered an era of unprecedented innovation, with substantial impacts on healthcare delivery and patient outcomes. Understanding the current development, primary research focuses, and key contributors in AI applications in medicine through bibliometric analysis is essential.

For this research, we utilized the Web of Science Core Collection as our main database and performed a review of literature covering the period from January 2019 to December 2023. VOSviewer and R-bibliometrix were performed to conduct bibliometric analysis and network visualization, including the number of publications, countries, journals, citations, authors, and keywords.

A total of 1,811 publications on research for AI in medicine were released across 565 journals by 12,376 authors affiliated with 3,583 institutions from 97 countries. The United States became the foremost producer of scholarly works, significantly impacting the field. Harvard Medical School exhibited the highest publication count among all institutions. The Journal of Medical Internet Research achieved the highest H-index (19), publication count (76), and total citations (1,495). Four keyword clusters were identified, covering AI applications in digital health, COVID-19 and ChatGPT, precision medicine, and public health epidemiology. "Outcomes" and "Risk" demonstrated a notable upward trend, indicating the utilization of AI in engaging with clinicians and patients to discuss patients' health condition risks, foreshadowing future research focal points.

Analyzing our bibliometric data allowed us to identify progress, focus areas, and emerging fields in AI for medicine, pointing to potential future research directions. Since 2019, there has been a steady rise in publications related to AI in medicine, indicating its rapid growth. In addition, we reviewed journals and significant publications to pinpoint prominent countries, institutions, and academics. Researchers will gain important insights into the current landscape, collaborative frameworks, and key research topics in the field from this study. The findings suggest directions for future research.