A Review on Digital Twin Technology in Healthcare

Digital twin technology is the union of three systems - the physical, the virtual and the interconnecting link layer. It acts as a replica and provides real-time representation of real-world physical objects in a virtual format. Digital twins are promising when applied in healthcare. This brief review gives a schematic overview of the current state of digital twin, specifically in the healthcare industry with gaps to overcome the challenges in building smart healthcare ecosystem. A concise synthesis of the following aspects of digital twin provides a cohesive whole in this paper: new capabilities and functions of the digital twin in healthcare, technologies that support digital twins, with its applications. This study motivated by the current COVID-19 pandemic, focuses on the application of the Digital Twin technology in healthcare.

I. Introduction

Incorporating digital technologies in healthcare aims to bring a positive revolution in the healthcare industry, intending to ensure high-quality patient care and increased life span. One such promising technology is the digital twin technology. Digital twin is a virtual copy of a physical object to understand its functioning, effects, and specifications in a simulation environment [1]. In other words, the digital twin is a digital model (representation) that denotes the condition of a tangible object, process or system For example, in the healthcare setting, significant actions have been carried out in constructing digital twins of patients and of medical devices. Interactions with such prototypes are virtual, real-time, and precise [2].