Background The high-quality development of public hospitals is based on management innovation, grasping the latest trend in research and analyzing the evolution path and development trends are conducive to solving the problem of improving quality and efficiency, empowering the high-quality development of hospitals, and achieving the goal of building a new system of high-quality development of public hospitals, enhancing the new efficiency of high-quality development of public hospitals, and activating new impetus for high-quality development of public hospitals.

Objective To analyze the research hotspots and trends of domestic public hospitals, and provide reference for high-quality development of public hospitals.

Methods Based on 831 articles on the theme of high-quality development of public hospitals included in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database from its establishment to 2024, co word analysis and sudden word graph analysis were conducted to explore the cutting-edge hotspots and evolutionary paths of research on high-quality development of public hospitals.

Results In the past five years, the annual publication volume of high-quality development research literatures in domestic public hospitals increased sharply. The published journals were mainly ordinary journals, and the research institutions were relatively scattered, without forming a core author group and core research institutions. The research on high-quality development of public hospitals had formed 8 thematic clusters, namely operation management, connotation, party building, medical quality, hospital management, party building work, informatization, and evolution process, representing 8 hotspots of high-quality development of domestic public hospitals. The timeline view indicated that researches on the high-quality development of domestic public hospitals evolved from efficiency evaluation, financial supervision, to intelligence.

Conclusion The research on the high-quality development of public hospitals has received continuous attention in China since 2018, showing an evolution path from extensive to intensive development. In the future, it is necessary to use information technology and intelligent means to promote the refinement of the operation mode of public hospitals and achieve the improvement of hospital construction quality and efficiency.