Impact of COVID-19 on Primary Healthcare Research: Trends and Suggestions for Better Services Approaches Via...

The authors assessed how research in primary healthcare was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and identified the potential of blockchain technology to address pandemic-related challenges.

This quantitative bibliometric research study used machine learning techniques. A comprehensive analysis of all primary healthcare (PHC) research was conducted using bibliometric data from the WOs. We examined co-authorship, co-occurrences, citation and co-citation, thematic mapping, factorial, document, and Latent Dirichlet Allocationtopic analyses. Our main dataset was 1,885 articles produced by 9,185 researchers from 3,132 institutions in 113 countries.

The most cited studies in the PHC field during the pandemic related to telemedicine and remote consultation, along with clinical conditions such as mental health, diabetes, vaccinations, risks during pregnancy, and healthcare of the elderly. In addition, the impact of COVID-19 on educational outcomes, changes to the organization of care, experiences and challenges to PHC physicians and other health professionals, and the diversity of COVID-19 symptoms were prominent.

The PHC researchers adapted quickly to the pandemic and conducted multidisciplinary research that helped to mitigate the impact on individuals, health systems, and society. Within this context, blockchain technology can be used to facilitate the security of health data, resource management (e.g., monitoring of the vaccine supply chain), and global collaboration toward pandemic control. By providing transparency, security, and efficiency in these areas, blockchain technology might lead to more effective pandemic preparedness and management in the future.