Two decades of patient health information exchange: a bibliometric analysis of research trends

Research into efficient health information exchange (HIE) approaches for continuity of care has gained much momentum, especially after the COVID pandemic. The purpose of the study is to review peer-reviewed publications on the adoption of technology in HIE. A structured literature search was conducted in the web of science database covering a period of 23 years. Biblioshiny software has been used for analysis and visualisation. The most productive journals, authors, countries, and popular keywords have been found as well as their growth and changes over time. Evolving themes have been identified. The growth rate of HIE related publications has grown rapidly in the last five years and blockchain is the latest focus area. There is increased interest in EHR based disease registries and associated ontologies which further incentivises HIE. The shifting paradigm towards patient-centric care delivery and growth in potential for big data, artificial intelligence and other data intensive technologies in healthcare IT solutions will necessitate unhindered HIE. Research into enabling foundational technologies such as blockchain, data safety and security, semantic interoperability (for example, through ontologies) are expected to move forward concurrently, in a concerted effort to achieve secure health information exchange for all.