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.

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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.

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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

Vol. 22 No. 4 (2024): Ordinary Issue

Section

Electronics