Scientific production of the Hospitals Associated to COODESURIS, Risaralda, Colombia, 2012

Introduction: Scientific production of the hospitals is a key element not sufficiently assessed in some places, such is the case of the department Risaralda, Colombia. Materials and methods: A bibliometric study, using the database Google Scholar, assessing the scientific production of academic documents linked to the healthcare institutions of Risaralda, associated to the Cooperativa de Entidades de Salud COODESURIS, was done. Results: A total of 77 valid academic documents was found. From them the Hospital Universitario San Jorge was the one reporting large number of them, 22 (28.6%), followed by the Hospital Santa Mónica with 9 (11.7%) and the Hospital San Vicente de Paúl from Apía with 8 (10.4%). From those documents, 43 (55.8%) corresponded with thesis works, 28 (36.4%) to scientific articles published in journals, 4 (5.2%) to professional practice reports, 1 guide (1.3%), and 1 book were a reference to a healthcare institution was made (1.3%). Discussion: Based on these findings, the hospitals associated to COODESURIS have a low scientific production level, which can be used to establish a starting point to improve through different strategies that look at increase the level of scientific production in a short, medium and long term. Even more, a classification is proposed for the healthcare institutions in three current possible levels: low, very low and extremely low, according to criteria based on the published articles and academic documents.