Telemedicine trends in orthopaedics and trauma during the COVID-19 pandemic: A bibliometric analysis and review

OBJECTIVES: In the wake of recent widespread interest in telemedicine during the COVID-19 era, many orthopaedic surgeons may be unfamiliar with clinical examination skills, patients’ safety, data security, and implementation-related concerns in telemedicine. We present a bibliometric analysis and review of the telemedicine-related publications concerning orthopaedics care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such analysis can help orthopaedic surgeons become acquainted with the recent developments in telemedicine and its usage in regular orthopaedics practice. METHODS: We systematically searched the database of Thomson Reuters Web of Science for telemedicine-related articles in orthopaedics published during the COVID-19 pandemic. The selected articles were analysed for their source journals, corresponding authors, investigating institutions, countries of the corresponding authors, number of citations, study types, levels of evidence, and a qualitative review. RESULTS: Fifty-nine articles meeting the inclusion criteria were published in 28 journals. Three hundred forty-two authors contributed to these research papers. The United States (US) contributed the most number of articles to the telemedicine-related orthopaedics research during the COVID-19 era. All articles combined had a total of 383 citations and 66.1% were related to the Economic and Decision-making Analyses of telemedicine implementation. By and large, level IV evidence was predominant in our review. CONCLUSION: Telemedicine can satisfactorily cover a major proportion of patients' visits to outpatient departments, thus limiting hospitals’ physical workload. Telemedicine has a potential future role in emergency orthopaedics and inpatient care through virtual aids. The issues related to patient privacy, data security, medicolegal, and reimbursement-related aspects need to be addressed through precise national or regional guidelines. Lastly, the orthopaedic physical examination is a weak link in telemedicine and needs to be strengthened.