Publication trends in telemedicine research originating from Canada

Abstract

Telemedicine modalities for patient care have seen significant global uptake during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to bibliometrically evaluate the evolution and current landscape of telemedicine literature in Canada. The Scopus database was searched to identify telemedicine publications for which the first or last author had a Canadian institutional affiliation. Study selection and data abstraction were conducted by two pairs of independent reviewers. Between 1976 and January 2021, 810 of 3620 retrieved citations were telemedicine publications originating from Canada, including 29 randomized controlled trials and 6 systematic reviews. The annual publication output increased substantially from 1/year in 1976 to 80/year in 2020. Based on author keyword analysis, the most frequently investigated disciplines or disease entities were primary care, COVID-19, telepsychiatry, heart failure, and mental health. The insights this study provides will aid scientists, policymakers, and other stakeholders in identifying opportunities for future investigation and clinical application.

Bibliometric Analysis: Six Decades of Scientific Production from a Single Nationwide Institution: Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales De Los Trabajadores Del Estado (ISSSTE) from Mexico

“…The very concept of scientific "performance" is controversial, but bibliometric indicators allow to gauge the productivity (number of publications) and the impact (how often cited) at all the three levels: micro (an individual), meso (a health institutions) or macro (countries, specialties, universities). Both developed nations (North America (27), Europe (28), Asia(29), Oceania(30)), or less advanced economies (South America (31) or Africa(32)), have made efforts to evaluate how far their contributions have been important to the global corpus of science. However, the interest on the topic in Mexico is extremely low as we have stated above.…”

“…Our research was performed in Scopus, a database which was used in our previous bibliometric studies on Latin American research (19), COVID-19 pandemic (20)(21)(22), epilepsy (23,24), dementias (25), brain tumors (26), neurosurgery (27) and neurocysticercosis (28). We chose to use this repository is it is a well-known complete, varied, interdisciplinary and neutral source which delivers abstract and citations with a significant overview of the world's research output in the field of medicine and other related fields.…”

Bibliometric Analysis: Six Decades of Scientific Production from a Nationwide Institution: Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado (ISSSTE) from Mexico

“…As mentioned in the introduction, bibliometric analysis (BA) has largely been ignored by Mexican scientists in the medical field. In other parts of the world, BA has sparked a lot of interest, and developed nations (from North America [ 16 ], Europe [ 17 ], Asia [ 20 ], and Oceania [ 21 ], as well as less advanced economies in South America [ 22 ] and Africa [ 23 ], have made efforts to evaluate the importance of their contributions to the global corpus of science. We would like to encourage other Mexican researchers to join our efforts to analyze our contribution to science.…”

“…These strategies will identify research gaps in primary care and might help promote healthcare improvement focused on the most prevalent diseases treated by ISSSTE hospitals [ 15 ]. This highly valuable tool can build a solid foundation for advancing any field and can certainly guide research but has largely been underused in Mexico [ 16 , 17 ]. Ours is a pioneer project analyzing a Mexican institution with nationwide distribution, from inception to the present time, including the present COVID-19 pandemic, and is a foundation for later analyses in our country or in our region.…”