Telemedicine Research Trends: A Bibliometric Perspective on Security and Privacy

Öz

Aim: To explore the intersection of telemedicine, security and privacy through a comprehensive bibliometric analysis, with a focus on technological developments, thematic structures, and global research trends.

Method: This study is a bibliometric analysis examining publication trends, thematic structures, keyword patterns and authorial, institutional and County-level contributions to telemedicine security research. A total of 10,641 peer-reviewed articles were retrieved from scientific databases covering health services, telemedicine and information technology literature from 2014 to April 2026. Co-occurrence analysis and thematic mapping were used to identify foundational, specialized, driving and emerging areas of inquiry. Bibliometric tools were used to analyze scientific production, collaboration patterns, keyword structures and thematic development.

Results: The volume of research increased significantly after 2020, reflecting the growing role of telemedicine and digital health services during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.  The findings show that “telemedicine,” “privacy,” “security,” “digital health,” “mHealth,” and “telehealth” are among the most frequent and influential keywords in the field. The thematic map indicates that security, privacy and blockchain appear as specialized niche themes, whereas artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, big data, and ethics represent emerging areas requiring stronger integration with telemedicine security and privacy research. The results also reveal broad contributions from various authors, institutions, journals, and countries, confirming the multidisciplinary and global nature of this research area.

Conclusion: Research on telemedicine security is rapidly expanding, with increasing attention to digital health infrastructures, privacy protection, cybersecurity, and patient-centered remote care. Future studies should focus on integrating security and privacy mechanisms into mainstream telemedicine applications, developing secure data-sharing frameworks, strengthening ethical and privacy-preserving AI-based telemedicine systems and addressing user acceptance differences related to sociocultural, regional, and Digital literacy. These directions can support the development of safer, more trustworthy, inclusive, and sustainable digital health systems.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Telemedicine
• security
• e-health
• data privacy
• bibliometric analysis

Tele-tıp Araştırma Trendleri: Güvenlik ve Gizlilik Üzerine Bibliyometrik Bir Bakış Açısı

Öz

Amaç: Teknolojik gelişmeler, tematik yapılar ve küresel araştırma trendlerine odaklanarak, kapsamlı bir bibliyometrik analiz yoluyla tele-tıp, güvenlik ve gizlilik kesişimini incelemektir.

Yöntem: Bu çalışma; tele-tıp güvenliği araştırmalarındaki yayın eğilimlerini, tematik yapıları, anahtar kelime kalıplarını ve yazar, kurum ve ülke düzeyindeki katkıları inceleyen bir bibliyometrik analizdir. Sağlık hizmetleri, tele-tıp ve bilgi teknolojisi literatürünü kapsayan bilimsel veri tabanlarından 2014 ile Nisan 2026 tarihleri ​​arasında yayınlanmış toplam 10.641 hakemli makale elde edilmiştir. Çalışmada; temel, uzmanlaşmış, yönlendirici ve gelişmekte olan araştırma alanlarını belirlemek için eş zamanlılık analizi ve tematik haritalama kullanmıştır. Bilimsel üretim, işbirliği kalıpları, anahtar kelime yapıları ve tematik gelişmeyi analiz etmek için bibliyometrik araçlardan yararlanılmıştır.

Bulgular: 2020'den sonra araştırma hacmi önemli ölçüde artmış olup, bu durum COVID-19 pandemisi sırasında ve sonrasında teletıp ve dijital sağlık hizmetlerinin artan rolünü yansıtmaktadır. Bulgular, “teletıp,” “gizlilik,” “güvenlik,” “dijital sağlık,” “mHealth” ve “tele sağlık” kelimelerinin alandaki en sık ve etkili anahtar kelimeler arasında olduğunu göstermektedir. Tematik harita, güvenlik, gizlilik ve blok zincirinin uzmanlaşmış niş temalar olarak ortaya çıktığını, yapay zeka, makine öğrenimi, derin öğrenme, büyük veri ve etiğin ise teletıp güvenliği ve gizlilik araştırmalarıyla daha güçlü entegrasyon gerektiren gelişmekte olan alanları temsil ettiğini göstermektedir. Sonuçlar ayrıca, çeşitli yazarların, kurumların, dergilerin ve ülkelerin geniş katkılarını ortaya koyarak, bu araştırma alanının çok disiplinli ve küresel doğasını doğrulamaktadır.

Sonuç: Tele-tıp güvenliği araştırmaları, dijital sağlık altyapılarına, gizlilik korumasına, siber güvenliğe ve hasta merkezli uzaktan bakıma artan ilgiyle birlikte hızla genişlemektedir. Gelecekteki çalışmalar; güvenlik ve gizlilik mekanizmalarını ana akım teletıp uygulamalarına entegre etmeye, güvenli veri paylaşım çerçeveleri geliştirmeye, etik ve gizliliği koruyan yapay zeka tabanlı teletıp sistemlerini güçlendirmeye ve kullanıcı kabulünde sosyokültürel, bölgesel ve dijital okuryazarlıkla ilgili farklılıkları ele almaya odaklanmalıdır. Bu yönlendirmeler, daha güvenli, daha güvenilir, kapsayıcı ve sürdürülebilir dijital sağlık sistemlerinin geliştirilmesini destekleyebilir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Tele-tıp
• güvenlik
• e-sağlık
• veri gizliliği
• bibliyometrik analiz

Kaynakça

1. 1. Haleem A, Javaid M, Singh RP, Suman R. Telemedicine for healthcare: Capabilities, features, barriers, and applications. Sensors International. 2021;2:1-12.
2. 2. Anawade PA, Sharma D, Gahane S. A comprehensive review on exploring the impact of telemedicine on healthcare accessibility. Cureus. 2024;16(3):1-12.
3. 3. Stoltzfus M, Kaur A, Chawla A, Gupta V, Anamika FNU, Jain R. The role of telemedicine in healthcare: an overview and update. The Egyptian Journal of Internal Medicine. 2023;35(1):1-5.
4. 4. Kruse CS, Karem P, Shifflett K, Vegi L, Ravi K, Brooks M. Evaluating barriers to adopting telemedicine worldwide: a systematic review. Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare. 2018;24(1):4-12.
5. 5. Bernabe M, Ebardo R. Barriers leading to the discontinuance of telemedicine among healthcare providers: a systematic review. Data Metadata. 2025;4:440.
6. 6. Moffatt JJ, Eley DS. Barriers to the up-take of telemedicine in Australia–a view from providers. Rural and Remote Health. 2011;11(1):116-121.
7. 7. Jena A, Bist L, Agarwal S, Bhuyan D, Abraham G, Borah K. Policy innovation in healthcare: exploring the adoption and implementation of telemedicine. Health. 2025;5:6.
8. 8. Hamdan IM, Alkhader E. Telemedicine adoption from the perspective of healthcare providers: barriers and challenges. Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research. 2025;16(4):rmaf019.

9. 9. Dang VA, Vu Khanh Q, Nguyen VH, Nguyen T, Nguyen DC. Intelligent healthcare: Integration of emerging technologies and Internet of Things for humanity. Sensors. 2023;23(9):1-24.
10. 10. Park HA. Secure Telemedicine System. In 2018 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI); 2018 December; Las Vegas, NV, USA. IEEE; p. 732-737.
11. 11. Pavithra V, Chandrasekaran J. Developing security solutions for telemedicine applications: medical image encryption and watermarking. In Research anthology on telemedicine efficacy, adoption, and impact on healthcare delivery. Hershey, PA: IGI Global Scientific Publishing; 2021. p. 612-631.
12. 12. Shirisha P, Soni S, Hemamalini V, et al. Secure Blockchain-Powered Health Record Management for Telemedicine and Remote Patient Monitoring Using Decentralized Encryption. In 2025 3rd International Conference on Cyber Resilience (ICCR); 2025, July; IEEE; p. 1-10.
13. 13. Mehta N, Chaudhary A. Infrastructure and system of telemedicine and remote health monitoring. In: Tanupriya Choudhury, Avita Katal, Jung-Sup Um, Ajay Rana and Marwan Al-Akaidi, eds. Telemedicine: The Computer Transformation of Healthcare. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2022.
14. 14. Santamato V, Tricase C, Faccilongo N, Iacoviello M, Marengo A. Exploring the impact of artificial intelligence on healthcare management: A combined systematic review and machine-learning approach. Applied Sciences. 2024;14(22):1-30.
15. 15. Chang MJ, Jung JK, Park MW, Chung TM. Strategy to reinforce security in telemedicine services. In: 2015 17th International Conference on Advanced Communication Technology (ICACT). July 1-3, South Korea. 2015.
16. 16. Sandhu RS, Samarati P. Authentication, Access Controls, and Intrusion Detection. The Computer Science and Engineering Handbook. 1997; 1: 929-1.
17. 17. Ferraiolo D, Kuhn R, Hu V. Authentication, Authorization, Access Control, and Privilege Management. Wiley Handbook of Science and Technology for Homeland Security. 2008;1:1-12.
18. 18. Chen HM, Lo JW, Yeh CK. An efficient and secure dynamic id-based authentication scheme for telecare medical information systems. Journal of medical systems. 2012;36(6):3907-3915.
19. 19. Lin TW, Hsu CL, Le TV, Lu CF, Huang BY. A smartcard-based user-controlled single sign-on for privacy preservation in 5G-IoT telemedicine systems. Sensors, 2021; 21(8): 2880.
20. 20. Jian G, Feng R. Cryptanalysis and improvement of an improved two factor authentication scheme for telecare medicine information systems. arXiv preprint arXiv:1607.01471. 2016.
21. 21. Chatterjee S, Roy S, Das AK, et al. On the design of fine grained access control with user authentication scheme for telecare medicine information systems. IEEE Access. 2017;5:7012-7030.
22. 22. Hamzah M, Husna D, Astha Ekadiyanto F, et al. Access control design based on user role type in telemedicine system using ethereum blockchain. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Communication and Information Processing; 2021 December. p. 112-117.
23. 23. Lee S, Kim J, Kwon Y, Kim T, Cho S. Privacy preservation in patient information exchange systems based on blockchain: system design study. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2022;24(3):e29108.
24. 24. Hossain M, Islam SR, Ali F, Kwak KS, Hasan R. An Internet of Things-based health prescription assistant and its security system design. Future Generation Computer Systems. 2018;82:422-439.
25. 25. Haldkar CD, Sharma S, Sharma A, Sharma A. Cybersecurity in the age of connected healthcare. In Machine and Human Together: Innovating Healthcare with Technology. Bentham Science Publishers; 2025. p. 340-364.
26. 26. Jafar U, Hussain HA. Addressing unique cybersecurity challenges in telehealth and remote physiologic monitoring. In Secure Health. Boca Raton, CRC Press; 2024. p. 124-168.
27. 27. Bhardwaj M, Juneja Y, Sidana N. Cybersecurity in healthcare: risks, vulnerabilities, and ethical imperatives. In Organ Trafficking Prevention in the Healthcare Sector: Examining the Co-Creation of Cybersecurity Value. Hershey, PA: IGI Global Scientific Publishing; 2026. p. 1-34.
28. 28. Geada N. Navigating the digital frontier telemedicine compliance. In Improving Security, Privacy, and Connectivity Among Telemedicine Platforms. Hershey, PA: IGI Global Scientific Publishing; 2024. p. 61-70.
29. 29. Donthu N, Kumar S, Mukherjee D, Pandey N, Lim WM. How to conduct a bibliometric analysis: An overview and guidelines. Journal of Business Research. 2021;133:285-296.
30. 30. Passas I. Bibliometric analysis: the main steps. Encyclopedia. 2024;4(2):1014-1025.
31. 31. Quesado P, Costa Oliveira H, Silva R. Integrating sustainability goals into the balanced scorecard: A bibliometric analysis of the sustainability balanced scorecard. Measuring Business Excellence. 2025;29(2):352-367.
32. 32. Aria M, Cuccurullo C. Bibliometrix: An R-tool for comprehensive science mapping analysis. Journal of Informetrics. 2017;11(4):959-975.