Exploring the Landscape, Hot Topics, and Trends of Electronic Health Records Literature with Topics Detection and Evolution Analysis

Abstract

Electronic health records (EHRs)-related publications grow rapidly. It is helpful for experts and scholars in various disciplines to better understand the research landscape, hot topics, and trends of EHRs. We collected 13,438 records of EHRs research literature bibliometrics data from the Web of Science. We mainly performed the descriptive statistical analysis, social network analysis, and topic modeling with lda2vec to reveal the publications growth trend, research subjects distribution, and topics of EHRs researches. The EHRs research mainly included four topics: (i) population health, disease risk prediction, and primary care; (ii) technology, ethics, and privacy security; (iii) quality improvement, user acceptance, and engagement; (iv) information systems application and impact. EHRs have gone through the establishment, utilization, and high-level development and application. Research topics emerging in recent years have primarily focused on the social determinants of health, the application of deep learning models, the development and utilization of the patient portal, the mining of explicit and tacit knowledge, and the provision of decision support.

Visualizing Knowledge Evolution Trends and Research Hotspots of Personal Health Data Research: Bibliometric Analysis

“…The results also suggest that from 2013 onward, research communities have been actively seeking methods to make meaningful use of PHD. The overall trend of EHR research mirrors the previous finding of Qian et al [ 29 ] that EHR research has evolved from the adoption of EHR to higher-level application and integration of EHR. A well-cited publication is one from Blumenthal and Tavenner [ 47 ], which briefs about how EHR benefits patients and caregivers.…”

“…Wang et al [ 28 ] used bibliometric methods to compare publication hotspots in EHRs from different periods among 6 countries. The recent articles by Qian et al [ 29 ] and Zhenni and Yuxing [ 30 ] applied social network analysis and topic modeling methods to explore the EHR publications in-depth to evaluate the publications trends and detect the frontiers. However, these were mainly aimed at a specific type of health data: EHR.…”

Frequent and diverse use of electronic health records in the United States: A trend analysis of national surveys

“…For example, health inequality and technology inequality among individuals might affect the adoption of EHRs. 24 Information foraging theory suggests that people's information searching behavior is determined by their information needs and such behavior persists when the information obtained from a particular channel is useful and this channel is easy to access. 25 In the context of EHRs, when people's health needs and technology-related access are satisfied, they are more willing to adopt EHRs.…”

“…Finally, since technological innovations in the medical field are dynamically and inextricably related to population health, examining EHR usage and its associated factors could be more informative if investigated over time. 24 Put differently, understanding what factors are durable in predicting EHR usage over time could help scholars and medical professionals to develop intervention strategies that increase EHR adoption among the general public. 18 Therefore, based on our proposed framework, we further ask a research question: What factors are associated with the frequency and diversity of EHR usage over time?…”