Medical Informatics Research across 20 Years in China: A Structural Topic Modeling-based Analysis of Master’s Theses

Abstract The establishment of the Discipline Development Consortium for Medical Informatics has ushered in a new phase of medical informatics (MI) research in China. Consequently, Chinese government, healthcare providers, and scholars, have increased their attention on the topic with the aim of improving patient care and healthcare delivery. The purpose of this study was to examine the research progress of medical informatics in China over the past 20 years using Master’s theses. Descriptive analysis was completed to identify the temporal distribution, spatial distribution, institutional distribution, specialty distribution, and advisor distribution, of the theses. A structural topic modeling-based analysis was performed to determine topic prevalence, topic correlation, associations between prolific institutions and topics, and topic trend. Our results reveal that the majority of institutions publishing theses on MI include universities with medical departments, medical universities, engineering universities, and research institutes. Most theses advisors focus on the field of medical informatics, while the sub-fields studied include software engineering, computer science, and biomedical engineering. The themes of theses can be divided into seven categories, including: electronic medical records and hospital informatics, Internet + medicine, and health information management and analysis, while new technologies, such as mHealth, Internet+, cloud computing, and big data, are growing in interest. Medical informatics in China should be established as an independent discipline to enhance research focus and to promote cross-institutional, cross-disciplinary, and cross-national collaboration between authors and institutions.