Scientific Mapping of New Developments in Health Information Technology Based on WoS ‎Articles: 2010-2017‎

Visualization of the science has a significant role in discovering the latent patterns of scientific fields, especially in interdisciplinary and new fields. This study aimed to identify major research approaches to health information technology (HIT) worldwide with the purpose of scientific mapping of new developments in health information technology based on WoS articles and helping the research and educational activities related to future studies.

Scientometrics was used in this descriptive study. For this purpose, worldwide HIT references were extracted from the WoS database between 2010 and 2017 (5301 articles). Then, articles were analyzed in HistCite 12.03.17.

Based on the extracted articles, six primary clusters of HIT were identified. The primary category concerned the cost-benefit of information systems, especially the Electronic Health Record (EHR). Secondary clusters included the following areas: acceptance and failure of information systems and implementation issues; HIT challenges in security and confidentiality along with the impacts on medical ethics; the role of HIT in improving the quality of health services; the interoperability of EHR and the future usability of HIT area such as Telemedicine & Telehealth.

Cost and benefit of information systems were the main area of research in the field of health information technology based on WoS articles. This issue has been closely related to the success and failure of information systems and attention to the usability of health information systems.