From Medical Informatics to Digital Health: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Research Field

Healthcare services and systems may face an enormous impact of digital transformation in the near future. Based on recent changes derived from the digitalization of economic sectors, one may point to new health processes and business models. Considering digital transformation may pose new challenges for healthcare, this work sought to understand historical changes in the medical informatics research field based on a bibliometric study to predict the characteristics of these recent trends. We analyzed papers since the 1960s, codifying keywords in three different axes, namely: general labels, applications, and technologies, to understand how the research field of medical informatics has evolved and corresponding technological changes that took place. The study identified four distinct and coherent waves, each having its key aspects and predominant nomenclatures. We also found evidence suggesting that the changes started in the last few years point to an emerging digital health wave