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Evolution of connected health: a network perspective

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Abstract

In this study, the evolution of the connected health concept is analysed and visualized to investigate the ever-tightening relationship between health and technology as well as emerging possibilities regarding delivery of healthcare services. A scientometric analysis was undertaken to investigate the trends and evolutionary relations between health and information systems through the queries in the Web of Science database using terms related to health and information systems. To understand the evolutionary relation between different concepts, scientometric analyses were conducted within five-year intervals using the VantagePoint, SciMAT, and CiteSpace II software. Consequently, the main stream of publications related to the connected health concept matching telemedicine cluster was determined. All other developments in health and technologies were discussed around this main stream across years. The trends obtained through the analysis provide insights about the future of healthcare and technology relationship particularly with rising importance of privacy, personalized care along with mobile networks and mobile infrastructure.

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Notes

  1. https://www.thevantagepoint.com/.

  2. Reduced numbers in 2016 is due to the lack of the full set of publications in the database in the final year of analysis.

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Acknowledgements

The contributions by Ozcan Saritas in this study were made within the framework of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), Russian Federation, and supported within the framework of a subsidy by the Russian Academic Excellence Project ‘5-100’. The contributions by Serhat Burmaoglu were supported by the IKCU BAP Project 2015-ÖNP-IIBF-0014.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Healthcare Management, Izmir Katip Celebi University, 35620, Izmir, Turkey

    Serhat Burmaoglu, Levent Bekir Kıdak & İpek Camuz Berber

  2. National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russian Federation

    Ozcan Saritas

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  1. Serhat Burmaoglu
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  2. Ozcan Saritas
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  3. Levent Bekir Kıdak
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Correspondence to Serhat Burmaoglu.

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Burmaoglu, S., Saritas, O., Kıdak, L.B. et al. Evolution of connected health: a network perspective. Scientometrics 112, 1419–1438 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2431-x

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