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. 2022 Dec 16;19(24):16952.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph192416952.

A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of Decision Support Systems for Healthcare Referral Strategies

Hesham Ali Behary Aboelkhir  1 , Adel Elomri  1 , Tarek Y ElMekkawy  2 , Laoucine Kerbache  1 , Mohamed S Elakkad  3 , Abdulla Al-Ansari  3 , Omar M Aboumarzouk  3   4   5 , Abdelfatteh El Omri  3
Affiliations

A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of Decision Support Systems for Healthcare Referral Strategies

Hesham Ali Behary Aboelkhir et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: The referral process is an important research focus because of the potential consequences of delays, especially for patients with serious medical conditions that need immediate care, such as those with metastatic cancer. Thus, a systematic literature review of recent and influential manuscripts is critical to understanding the current methods and future directions in order to improve the referral process.

Methods: A hybrid bibliometric-structured review was conducted using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Searches were conducted of three databases, Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed, in addition to the references from the eligible papers. The papers were considered to be eligible if they were relevant English articles or reviews that were published from January 2010 to June 2021. The searches were conducted using three groups of keywords, and bibliometric analysis was performed, followed by content analysis.

Results: A total of 163 papers that were published in impactful journals between January 2010 and June 2021 were selected. These papers were then reviewed, analyzed, and categorized as follows: descriptive analysis (n = 77), cause and effect (n = 12), interventions (n = 50), and quality management (n = 24). Six future research directions were identified.

Conclusions: Minimal attention was given to the study of the primary referral of blood cancer cases versus those with solid cancer types, which is a gap that future studies should address. More research is needed in order to optimize the referral process, specifically for suspected hematological cancer patients.

Keywords: decision support systems; healthcare referral; medical transfer; operations management; patient pathways; quality of care.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funder had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Example of referral pathways in healthcare. Created with BioRender.com.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The methodology flow chart.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Flowchart of items included in the review.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Annual publication distribution, 2010–2021 (n = 163 papers).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Top journal contributions (most relevant) to RPHC publications.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Country of origin of authors with the highest article contribution.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Most-cited references [1,3,33,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50].
Figure 8
Figure 8
Trend topics using word repetition.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Authors’ collaboration network.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Cooperation between authors.
Figure 11
Figure 11
The global network of RPHC research.
Figure 12
Figure 12
Histography of the future research directions. [3,33,37,40,41,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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