The influence of production engineering in health care services: a bibliometric study focused on operational techniques

Production Engineering is originated on industrial applications, thereof developed methods and techniques along the last century were influenced by them. However, to the extent that such techniques spillover to non-industrial sectors, interesting opportunities arise. This paper presents a bibliometric study regarding the application of operational techniques that come from Production Engineering areas of study on health care services. The study is based on articles indexed by Scopus database from 2004 to 2014. Data collected was organized in several dimensions such as authors, countries, institutions and publication years and the main particularities were emphasized and discussed. Finally, some opportunities are identified both for the practice in health care units and new research in Production Engineering.