Five transformative trends in medical devices and digital health

Having all this data in a digital format does, in theory, enable its utilisation in healthcare applications, but the data also needs to be easily accessible, stored in a structured and standardised way, and kept secure to maintain patient confidentiality and privacy. When these conditions are met, new possibilities are unlocked to develop innovative medical devices and digital health applications to improve patient care. For example, a patient could be using a wearable medical device that monitors their physiological signals, such as heart rate, and stores the data in the cloud for analysis. Digital twins in healthcare are virtual representations of patients or medical devices that incorporate their historical diagnostic and/or maintenance data into a single knowledge base. As new data becomes available for example, when a patient visits a hospital for an examination, or a medical device is inspected the corresponding digital twin gets updated to keep track of current health status more accurately. Using digital twins in medical care allows patients to benefit from personalised medicine to individually detect the best possible treatment options as well as more proactively manage chronic diseases and overall health. The more medical data is available and accessible in a digital format, the more possibilities exist to develop new and innovative applications that make healthcare more efficient and improve patient outcomes. There are still barriers that the industry and healthcare providers need to overcome together, such as gaining straightforward and secure access to medical data and health records without compromising patient privacy and confidentiality.