• Lauren A McNickle, Kevin C Chiang, Elise M McNulty, and Robert P Olympia.
• Department of Pediatrics, Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital, 500 University Drive, Hershey, PA 17033, USA. Electronic address: lmcnickle@pennstatehealth.psu.edu.
• Am J Emerg Med. 2021 Aug 1; 46: 233-237.

BackgroundWith a steady rise in the number of urgent care centers in the United States and the establishment of urgent care medicine as a specialty, research in the field is likely to emerge.ObjectivesTo perform a bibliometric analysis of published studies in the field of urgent care medicine over the past two decades.MethodsA comprehensive literature review was conducted, including original and review articles pertaining to urgent care medicine published 2000-2020. Data abstracted from each article included publication year, journal, research study design, study population, clinical relevance (clinical or non-clinical), and study topics.ResultsA total of 144 publications from 94 peer-reviewed journals were analyzed. There has been a steady increase in the annual number of publications from 2010 to 2019. The most common study designs were retrospective (55.5%), study specific (24.3%), prospective (15.3%), and quality improvement (4.9%). Adults were the most frequently identified study population (33.3%), followed by pediatrics (18%), and both adults and pediatrics (16.7%). Publications were categorized as clinical (48.6%) and non-clinical (51.4%). The most common research topics were urgent care utilization [n = 34, 23.6%; especially effectiveness (n = 9) and disease based (n = 7)], diagnostic testing [(n = 20, 13.9%; especially HIV (n = 7) and sexually transmitted infections (n = 6)], and antibiotic stewardship (n = 17, 11.8%).ConclusionBased on our sample, published research in the field of urgent care medicine has evolved. By describing current trends, we hope that clinicians and researchers continue to advance the field by developing high quality research, including prospective, multi-institutional/center studies involving both clinical and non-clinical topics.Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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