Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG) is currently the most widely used hospital inpatient service payment system in the world. It is helpful to encourage hospitals to improve medical quality management, avoid excessive drug use, expensive consumables, and over examination. In recent years, China has gradually shifted from a “project-based-payment” post payment system to a “disease-based-payment” packaged prepayment system. In this paper we explore the undergoing tracks of DRG research and the development of research hotspots by bibliometric analysis. By analyzing the number and distribution of publications, cooperation of research institutions, keyword clustering and keyword burst, we have obtained some conclusions. Research in DRG field has experienced exactly 40 years, and it has a blowout growth in the past five years in China. Chinese research institutions are lack of communication and cooperation, while worldwide research institutions have shown obvious cooperative relationships. In view of research hotspots, Chinese researchers focus on the impact of DRG implementation on hospital operation. In contrast, the global research is mainly on the development of DRG grouping tools. Finally, we give some suggestions for DRG reform in China.