Web of Science-based Information Technology in Hospice Visual Analytics (Preprint)
Authors: cao songmei , huang yao , wang jingjing , liang yiqing 
Published: December 2023

BACKGROUND

At present, China has stepped into the development stage of deep aging, and the surge in the number of elderly population with chronic diseases, malignant tumors and other incurable diseases will stimulate the social demand for hospice services[1] . In recent years, with the rapid development of information technology, information technology has been applied to the care of all kinds of diseases, and it also plays a great role in the field of hospice care. Information technology refers to all possible technologies used to process and communicate information, such as computer technology, smart phones, multimedia, network hardware, software, internet, etc[2] . The World Health Organization proposes to help hospice patients live actively until death by implementing information technology and infrastructure[3,4] . Information technology is the key to the development of hospice care and can solve the major problems that hinder the development of hospice care, such as the difficulty of information sharing, the shortage of medical resources, the difficulty of communication and so on[5] . Currently, studies[6-8] have explored the results of the application of information technology in hospice care, but the visual analysis of the current status and hotspots of research in this field is still lacking. Therefore, this study applies bibliometrics to analyze the application of information technology in hospice care globally to provide a reference for promoting the development of information technology in hospice care in China.

OBJECTIVE

Objective: to analyze the research hotspots of the application of information technology in the field of hospice care, and to provide reference for the research and practice of the application of information technology in the field of hospice care in China.

METHODS

METHODS: We systematically searched the Web of Science core database for literature on the application of information technology in the field of hospice care, and used Hiscite Pro2.1, Citespace 6.2.R2, VOS viewer 1.6.18, and the bibliometric online analysis platform software to conduct bibliometric analysis.

RESULTS

RESULTS: A total of 395 documents were included, and the number of publications showed an increasing trend year by year, in which the country with the most publications was the United States; a total of 2343 authors participated in the research in this field, and a clear core team has been formed; the institutions with a high number of publications were dominated by American colleges, and there was a close cooperation and exchange between institutions; the author with the most publications was Prof. David Casaret from the United States; the Journal of Palliative Medicine was the journal with the most publications; keyword clustering was the most important factor in the analysis of the bibliometrics. The Journal of Palliative Medicine is the journal with the most publications; the top 5 keywords in the cluster analysis are "quality of life", "end stage", "home hospice", "death", "living" and "care". The top 5 keywords analyzed were "quality of life", "end stage", "home hospice", "death", "life care", etc. Keywords that have emerged in the last 5 years include "machine learning", "advance health care planning", "communication", "artificial intelligence", "home care", and "quality of life".

CONCLUSIONS

CONCLUSION: Research on the use of information technology in hospice care is in a rapidly developing phase. At present, it is mainly applied to home hospice care , improving patients' quality of life, predicting survival , nurse-patient communication, and advance care planning (ACP).