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. 2021 Apr 10;21(1):125.
doi: 10.1186/s12911-021-01488-9.

The role of artificial intelligence in healthcare: a structured literature review

Silvana Secinaro  1 , Davide Calandra  2 , Aurelio Secinaro  3 , Vivek Muthurangu  4 , Paolo Biancone  1
Affiliations

The role of artificial intelligence in healthcare: a structured literature review

Silvana Secinaro et al. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. .

Abstract

Background/introduction: Artificial intelligence (AI) in the healthcare sector is receiving attention from researchers and health professionals. Few previous studies have investigated this topic from a multi-disciplinary perspective, including accounting, business and management, decision sciences and health professions.

Methods: The structured literature review with its reliable and replicable research protocol allowed the researchers to extract 288 peer-reviewed papers from Scopus. The authors used qualitative and quantitative variables to analyse authors, journals, keywords, and collaboration networks among researchers. Additionally, the paper benefited from the Bibliometrix R software package.

Results: The investigation showed that the literature in this field is emerging. It focuses on health services management, predictive medicine, patient data and diagnostics, and clinical decision-making. The United States, China, and the United Kingdom contributed the highest number of studies. Keyword analysis revealed that AI can support physicians in making a diagnosis, predicting the spread of diseases and customising treatment paths.

Conclusions: The literature reveals several AI applications for health services and a stream of research that has not fully been covered. For instance, AI projects require skills and data quality awareness for data-intensive analysis and knowledge-based management. Insights can help researchers and health professionals understand and address future research on AI in the healthcare field.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence; Clinical decision-making; Healthcare; Management; Patient data.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
PRISMA workflow. Source: Authors’ elaboration on Liberati et al. [37]
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Annual scientific production. Source: Authors’ elaboration
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Source growth. Source: Authors’ elaboration
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Factorial map of the most cited documents. Source: Authors’ elaboration
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Lotka’s law. Source: Authors’ elaboration
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Keywords treemap. Source: Authors’ elaboration
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Topic dendrogram. Source: Authors’ elaboration
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
Word cloud. Source: Authors’ elaboration
Fig. 9
Fig. 9
Keywords frequency. Source: Authors’ elaboration
Fig. 10
Fig. 10
Articles per country. Source: Authors’ elaboration
Fig. 11
Fig. 11
Collaboration map. Source: Authors’ elaboration
Fig. 12
Fig. 12
Dominant variables for AI in healthcare. Source: Authors’ elaboration
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