Objective To analyze the research hotspots and trends of hospital human resource performance apprais-al in China,and put forward targeted suggestions to promote the development of related research. Methods A total of 436 literatures related to hospital human resource performance appraisal from the self-built database to December 31,2023 in CNKI database were selected. CiteSpace 6.3 R1 software was used to visually analyze the year,institution,au-thor and keywords of the publication. Results The number of literatures showed a steady upward trend from 2001 to 2023. The communication and cooperation between institutions and authors were not close enough. Keywords formed 9 clusters of performance appraisal,hospital,job performance,human resource,public hospital,performance evaluation,performance management,new medical reform,and nursing staff. The latest word was "public hospital" ( 2021-2023 ). The cultivation of talents and humanistic care were increasingly gaining attention. Conclusion The research on the performance appraisal of human resource in hospitals in China showed a trend of establishing a scientific performance ap-praisal system,deep integration of performance appraisal and incentive mechanism,and application of technologies such as smart healthcare and artificial intelligence. Future research should strengthen exchanges and cooperation between au-thors and institutions,pay attention to the feedback of performance appraisal results,and strengthen theoretical system and empirical research.