ral BMC Medical Informatics and ssBioMed CentDecision Making Open AcceResearch article

Background: The purpose of this study is to identify publication output, and research areas, as well as descriptively and quantitatively characterize the field of medical informatics through publication trend analysis over a twenty year period (1987–2006). Methods: A bibliometric analysis of medical informatics citations indexed in Medline was performed using publication trends, journal frequency, impact factors, MeSH term frequencies and characteristics of citations. Results: There were 77,023 medical informatics articles published during this 20 year period in 4,644 unique journals. The average annual article publication growth rate was 12%. The 50 identified medical informatics MeSH terms are rarely assigned together to the same document and are almost exclusively paired with a non-medical informatics MeSH term, suggesting a strong interdisciplinary trend. Trends in citations, journals, and MeSH categories of medical informatics output for the 20-year period are summarized. Average impact factor scores and weighted average impact factor scores increased over the 20-year period with two notable growth periods. Conclusion: There is a steadily growing presence and increasing visibility of medical informatic