Prioritizing educational initiatives on emerging technologies for Italian pediatricians: bibliometric review and a survey

Background: Emerging technologies have demonstrated outstanding potential in improving healthcare, yet their full integration remains a challenge for all medical specialties, including pediatrics. To support the swift implementation of technologies, we identified the current trends through a bibliometric review, and we conducted a survey on Italian pediatricians to gauge educational needs and willingness to integrate technologies into clinical practice. Methods: A working group of pediatricians representing various backgrounds designed and coordinated the study. To identify relevant topics for educational strategy development, we focused on virtual reality, telehealth, natural language processing, smartphone applications, robotics, genomics, and artificial intelligence. A bibliometric analysis limited to 2018-2023 was performed to identify trends and emerging applications within each topic. Based on the results, a questionnaire was developed and made available online to all Italian pediatricians. The results were analyzed through descriptive analysis and a multivariable logistic regression to explore associations between technology adoption and sociodemographic characteristics. Results: A total of 3,253 publications were found, with Telehealth and Telemedicine having the highest number of publications and Natural Language Processing the lowest. The number of respondents to the online questionnaire was 1,540, predominantly medical doctors with over 20 years of experience worki