Biomedical engineering research in Chilean universities - A bibliometric analysis

Authors

Keywords:

Biomedical engineering, educational programs, bibliometrics, knowledge discovery, Chile

Abstract

Biomedical engineering (BME) combines engineering, biology, and medicine to develop innovative healthcare solutions. There is an increasing demand for BME professionals following technological and scientific advances. In Chile, only three universities offer undergraduate BME programs: Universidad de Valparaíso, Universidad de Concepción, and Universidad de Santiago de Chile. Each institution has defined its curriculum, professional profile, and research focus based on its perspective of the country's needs. However, the scope of their research contribution has not been studied. In this work, we perform a comprehensive bibliometric analysis using data from the SCOPUS database to evaluate publications by researchers affiliated with Chilean undergraduate BME programs from 2000 to 2022. The objective is to identify the research areas of BME in Chile, understand the similarities and differences between universities, analyse their research areas, explore collaboration relationships, and characterise the discipline's evolution. The main contributions of this work are (1) a quantitative and qualitative analysis of BME research in Chile, (2) the identification of BME research areas and their development over time, (3) the creation of a dashboard-style web tool, and (4) proposing a robust methodology for bibliometric analysis applicable to BME literature in Chile and similar contexts. This work represents the first collaboration involving authors from all universities with undergraduate Chilean BME programs.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Javiera Vásquez-Salgado, Universidad de Santiago de Chile

Javiera Vásquez-Salgado is a fourth-year Biomedical Civil Engineering undergraduate student at Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH). She is an active and enthusiastic member of SOCEIB USACH (Sociedad Científica de Estudiantes de Ingeniería Civil Biomédica), where she collaborates in management and research, according to her interest associated with health informatics and medical imaging. She aims to utilise technology to improve healthcare processes, looking for a positive impact on the lives of others. Through her commitment to learning and active involvement, she strives to contribute to the advancements in biomedical engineering and related fields.

Rosa L. Figueroa, Universidad de Concepción

Rosa L. Figueroa received the B.Eng. Degree from the University of Concepción in 2004, and her PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the same institution, in 2012. Her PhD. Her thesis explored different methods to obtain valuable information from free text. She is currently a faculty member and researcher in the Biomedical Engineering degree part of the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Concepcion and a Technical Board Member at the National Center on Health Information Systems. She has scientific publications in journals and conference proceedings. Her research interest is in medical informatics, mainly machine learning and text mining. She is currently working on research projects on the secondary use of medical data and text classification.

Julio Sotelo, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María

Julio Sotelo obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile (2009, 2011), followed by M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (2016), and a Master's in Data Science from Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile (2022). He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Pontificia Universidad Católica and the Millennium Nucleus in Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance from 2016 to 2020, and was a professor at Universidad de Valparaíso until July 2023. Currently, he is a professor at Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María and a researcher at iHEALTH, focusing on advanced imaging processing, bio-instrumentation, finite elements, Biomechanics and Data Analytics. He has published over 40 articles and 60 conference works in his fields of expertise.

Manuel Villalobos-Cid, Universidad de Santiago de Chile

Manuel Villalobos-Cid received the B.Sc. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile, 2008, and PhD degree in Ciencias de la Ingeniería Mención Informática from Universidad de Santiago de Chile in 2017. He also has a professional profile related to the Healthcare planning, control and production analysis of hospitals, working at Hospital Barros Luco-Trudeau and the Servicio de Salud Metropolitano Sur, Santiago, Chile (2012-2015). He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Informatics at Universidad de Santiago de Chile and the Centre for Biotechnology and Bioengineering (CeBIB), Chile. Since 2019, he has been an assistant professor at the Department of Informatics at Universidad de Santiago de Chile. His research interests include evolutionary computation, multi-objective optimisation, data mining, and their applications to image processing, computational biology, biomedical engineering, bioinformatics, and other areas.

References

A. Houssein, A. K. Lefor, A. Veloso, Z. Yang, J. C. Ye, D. I. Zeugolis, and S. Y. Lee, “BMC biomedical engineering: a home for all biomedical engineering research,” BMC Biomedical Engineering, vol. 1, no. 1, 2019.

L. M. Bui, H. Thi Thu Phung, T.-T. Ho Thi, V. Singh, R. Maurya, K. Khambhati, C.-C. Wu, M. J. Uddin, D. M. Trung, and D. T. Chu, “Recent findings and applications of biomedical engineering for COVID-19 diagnosis: a critical review,” Bioengineered, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 8594– 8613, 2021.

A. Zbiciak and T. Markiewicz, “A new extraordinary means of appeal in the polish criminal procedure: the basic principles of a fair trial and a complaint against a cassatory judgment,” Access to Justice in Eastern Europe, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 1–18, 2023.

M. Javaid, A. Haleem, R. P. Singh, and R. Suman, “Sustaining the healthcare systems through the conceptual of biomedical engineering: A study with recent and future potentials,” Biomedical Technology, vol. 1, pp. 39–47, 2023. [5] R. A. Linsenmeier and A. Saterbak, “Fifty years of biomedical engineering undergraduate education,” Annals of Biomedical Engineering, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 1590–1615, 2020.

R. A. Linsenmeier and A. Saterbak, “Fifty years of biomedical engineering undergraduate education,” Annals of Biomedical Engineering, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 1590–1615, 2020.

C. D. Maria, A. D. Lantada, T. Jämsä, L. Pecchia, and A. Ahluwalia, “Biomedical engineering in low- and middle-income settings: analysis of the current state, challenges and best practices,” Health and Technology, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 643–653, 2022.

R. Allende, D. Morales, G. Avendano, and S. Chabert, “Biomedical engineering undergraduate education in latin america,” Journal of Physics: Conference Series, vol. 90, p. 012019, 2007.

G. Avendaño and A. Rienzo, “Programs in biomedical engineering education: How to improve it,” in VII Latin American Congress on Biomedical Engineering CLAIB 2016, Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia, October 26th -28th, 2016, pp. 741–744, Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2017.

J. Azpiroz-Leehan, F. Martínez-Licona, E. G. Urbina-Medal, M. Cadena M., and E. Sacristán Rock, “Biomedical engineering in latin america: A survey of 90 undergraduate programs,” in VII Latin American Congress on Biomedical Engineering CLAIB 2016, Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia, October 26th -28th, 2016, pp. 106–109, Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2017.

G. E. Avendaño, “Análisis crítico sobre la formación en ingeniería biomédica,” in V Latin American Congress on Biomedical Engineering CLAIB 2011 May 16-21, 2011, Habana, Cuba, pp. 377–380, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2013.

G. A. Cervantes and A. R. Renato, “Degree models in biomedical engineering,” Revista Ingeniería Biomédica, vol. 11, no. 22, 2017.

S. Salas and A. Rigotti, “Médicos-centíficos en chile: ¿una especie en extinción?,” Revista médica de Chile, vol. 133, no. 1, 2005.

S. Salas and M. Russo, “Transparencia en la investigacón biomédica: A propósito de los riesgos asociados al uso de avandia,” Revista médica de Chile, vol. 138, no. 9, 2010.

G. Valdés, R. Armas, and H. Reyes, “Principales características de la investigación biomédica actual, en chile,” Revista médica de Chile, vol. 140, no. 4, pp. 484–492, 2012.

G. Valdés, F. Pérez, and H. Reyes, “Análisis de las publicaciones biomédicas chilenas indizadas en PubMed, en los años 2008 y 2009,” Revista médica de Chile, vol. 143, no. 8, pp. 979–986, 2015.

Ítalo Bavestrello and Y. Carvajal, “Inversión en tecnología: el rol de la ingeniería biomédica en salud pública - investment in technology: the role of biomedical engineering in public health,” Revista médica de Chile, vol. 147, no. 12, pp. 1632–1633, 2019.

J. Ríos, E. Alcalde, E. Ramírez, M. Campbell, T. P. Labbé, S. Becerra, S. Santander, and M. E. Cabrera, “Una red de biobancos para chile: investigar hoy, para curar mañana,” Revista médica de Chile, vol. 147, no. 7, pp. 901–909, 2019.

N. Donthu, S. Kumar, D. Mukherjee, N. Pandey, and W. M. Lim, “How to conduct a bibliometric analysis: An overview and guidelines,” Journal of Business Research, vol. 133, pp. 285–296, 2021.

S. K. M. Brika, A. Algamdi, K. Chergui, A. A. Musa, and R. Zouaghi, “Quality of higher education: A bibliometric review study,” Frontiers in Education, vol. 6, 2021.

J. A. Jonczyk, A. M. Olszewska, and K. Jonczyk, “Application of bibliometric analysis in the research of scientific publications on the quality management of medical services,” Studies in Logic, Grammar

and Rhetoric, vol. 56, no. 1, pp. 143–159, 2018.

J. Bansard, M. Kerbaol, and J. Coatrieux, “A look at... an analysis of IEEE publications in biomedical engineering,” IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine, vol. 25, no. 5, pp. 6–12, 2006.

J. A. E. Spaan, “Biomedical engineering and bibliometric indices for scientific quality,” Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing, vol. 47, no. 12, 2009.

E. Zarrabeitia-Bilbao, I. Alvarez-Meaza, R.-M. Río-Belver, and G. Garechana-Anacabe, “Additive manufacturing technologies for biomedical engineering applications: Research trends and scientific

impact,” El Profesional de la Información, vol. 28, no. 2, 2019.

Y.-S. Ho, “Highly cited publications in WoS, biomedical engineering in science citation index expanded a bibliometric analysis,” Biomedicine and Chemical Sciences, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 24–34, 2022.

H. Fu, X. Jing, J. Lin, L. Wang, H. Jiang, B. Yu, and M. Sun, “Knowledge domain and hotspots analysis concerning applications of two-photon polymerization in biomedical field: A bibliometric and visualized study,” Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, vol. 10, 2022.

A. Steiner, J. Barros, G. Henríquez, H. Sandoval, L. Valenzuela, A. Vergara-Fernandez, and C. Villagrán, Ingeniería Biomédica - Nuevos desarfíos para la ingeniería nacional. Santiago: Instituto de Ingenieros de Chile, 09 2020.

J. L. Ruiz-Real, J. Uribe-Toril, J. D. P. Valenciano, and J. C. Gázquez-Abad, “Worldwide research on circular economy and environment: A bibliometric analysis,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 15, no. 12, p. 2699, 2018.

W. Malpica-Zapata, M. Gómez-Caicedo, and Álvaro Villa-Martínez, “Estudio sobre la investigación en marketing y su importancia en los procesos de exportación: análisis bibliométrico y temático en scopus,” Revista Perspectiva Empresarial, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 91–103, 2021.

M. Kumar, R. George, and P. Anisha, “Bibliometric analysis for medical research,” Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, p. 025371762211036, 2022.

A. Kemeç and A. Tarakcıoglu-Altınay, “Sustainable energy research trend: A bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer, RStudio bibliometrix, and CiteSpace software tools,” Sustainability, vol. 15, no. 4, p. 3618, 2023.

A. Kaya and Z. Hatuno ̆glu, “Publications on accounting standards in web of science database: A bibliometric analysis,” Muhasebe Bilim Dünyası Dergisi, 2022.

A. Desai and C. Patel, “Review of global research on e-mobility: A bibliometric analysis,” Communications - Scientific letters of the University of Zilina, 2022.

H. Wickham, ggplot2 - Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis, 2016.

H. Wickham, R. François, L. Henry, and K. Müller, dplyr: A Grammar of Data Manipulation, 2018.

Y. Xie, J. Cheng, X. Tan, and A. Pickering, A Wrapper of the JavaScript Library DataTables, 2023.

H. Wickham, Tidy Messy Data, 2023.

K. Benoit, K. Watanabe, H. Wang, P. Nulty, A. Obeng, S. Müller, and A. Matsuo, “quanteda: An r package for the quantitative analysis of textual data,” Journal of Open Source Software, vol. 3, no. 30, p. 774, 2018.

M. Aria and C. Cuccurullo, “bibliometrix: An r-tool for comprehensive science mapping analysis,” Journal of Informetrics, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 959–975, 2017.

W. Chang, J. Cheng, J. Allaire, C. Sievert, B. Schloerke, Y. Xie, J. Allen, J. McPherson, A. Dipert, and B. Borges, shiny: Web Application Framework for R, 2023. R package version 1.7.4.9002.

M. Levin-Epstein, ed., Careers in Biomedical Engineering. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2019.

C. Bota-Avram, “Bibliometric analysis of sustainable business performance: where are we going? a science map of the field,” Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 2137–2176, 2022.

N. O. D. Ellili, “Bibliometric analysis of sustainability papers: Evidence from environment, development and sustainability,” Environment, Development and Sustainability, 2023.

M. Villalobos-Cid, M. Orellana, O. C. Vásquez, E. Pinto-Sothers, and M. Inostroza-Ponta, “Dealing with the balanced academic curriculum problem considering the chilean academic credit transfer system,” in 2019 38th International Conference of the Chilean Computer Science Society (SCCC), pp. 1–7, 2019.

L. Huallcca, G. Madrid, J. Mellado, D. Vega-Araya, and M. Villalobos-Cid, “An informatics tool for class-to-class planning and academic-load evaluation,” in 2020 39th International Conference of the Chilean Computer Science Society (SCCC), pp. 1–5, 2020.

F. A. Bello, J. Kóhler, K. Hinrechsen, V. Araya, L. Hidalgo, and J. L. Jara, “Using machine learning methods to identify significant variables for the prediction of first-year informatics engineering students dropout,” in 2020 39th International Conference of the Chilean Computer Science Society (SCCC), pp. 1–5, 2020.

D. O. Granados, J. Ugalde, R. Salas, R. Torres, and J. L. López-Gonzales, “Visual-predictive data analysis approach for the academic performance of students from a peruvian university,” Applied Sciences, vol. 12, no. 21, p. 11251, 2022.

M. I. Miller, A. O. Brightman, F. H. Epstein, K. J. Grande-Allen, J. J. Green, E. Haase, C. T. Laurencin, E. Logsdon, F. Mac Gabhann, B. Ogle, C. Wang, G. R. Wodicka, and R. Winslow, “Bme 2.0: Engineering the future of medicine,” BME Frontiers, vol. 4, 2023.

Additional Files

Published

2024-03-13

How to Cite

Vásquez-Salgado, J., L. Figueroa, R., Sotelo, J., & Villalobos-Cid, M. (2024). Biomedical engineering research in Chilean universities - A bibliometric analysis. IEEE Latin America Transactions, 22(4), 339–351. Retrieved from https://latamt.ieeer9.org/index.php/transactions/article/view/8343

Issue

Section

Electronics