top of page

Digital Twin in Healthcare: Applications, Challenges, and Opportunities

  • Writer: Vaibhav Karanwal
    Vaibhav Karanwal
  • Jun 5
  • 4 min read

Updated: Jun 10


Digital Twin in Healthcare

In today’s smart time, technology also grows smartly continuously. Several technology enters the world of development. The Digital Twin is a technology that has become a trend for all industries. This technology is a virtual copy of the real thing, that computer-made version. This technology works in the healthcare industry as well. This technology creates virtual models of patients, organs, and hospitals. We’ll know about the detailed information of it, how it works in healthcare, challenges, and opportunities.


What is a Digital Twin?

The digital twin is a virtual copy of the real objects that are computer-made versions. It works as a real object. They look, behave, and react like real objects. 

When the digital twin in healthcare enters the industry, it can be a copy of:


  • The human body or organs, 

  • Hospitals or machines, 

  • Treatment or medical process 


Applications of Digital Twin in Healthcare

The digital twin company has used these trends in many different areas of the healthcare industry. The areas that cover healthcare can be patient care, surgery planning, organ modelling, hospital management, patient health tracking, and so on.


1. Personalized Patient Care

Every person's body is different from others. With the help of digital twin technologies, doctors can create personalized models for the patient’s body. This model will help to:


  • Test the body for the treatment

  • Accordingly, choose the best medicine and its doses

  • Preventing side effects


2. Surgery Planning and Training

Before planning the surgery, surgeons practice the operations. They are also used for training without harming real patients. It will help:


  • To understand the patient's actual situation

  • To try different approaches

  • Avoid risks


3. Organ Modelling and Disease Prediction

Doctors can create a virtual model of organs such as the liver, heart, lungs, and others. You can learn about how they work. These virtual organs help in : 


  • Understand the complex disease

  • Predicting how long the disease will last

  • Testing the treatments 


4. Hospital Management and Tracking

Hospitals are using digital twin technologies to manage their administration and machinery systems. It will help in:


  • Tracking machines such as ventilators and MRIs respond

  • Improve safety

  • For predicting before the machinery failure

  • Save costs

  • Manage beds and layouts, and reduce waiting times for queues


5. Remote Patient Tracking

Some wearable devices, such as health bands and smartwatches, monitor health. This will help:


  • To monitor chronic diseases like diabetes

  • Track heart rate, blood pressure 

  • Give home care




Challenges in Using Digital Twins in Healthcare

Digital Twin is a powerful tool for all industries. If benefits can be an industry, then challenges can also be:


1. Data Privacy and Security

Digital Twin has a lot of personal data, such as health records, test results, and real-time data. This needs data privacy and security. If data is stolen by anyone and misused, it can be harmful.


2. High Initial Cost

The digital twin creation and maintenance can be expensive. It requires new infrastructures, software and training programs, expert developers, and constant.


3. Training and skills

Every employee needs training. But the challenge is every worker doesn't knows the technologies and tools of the digital twin. So companies invest in their education also.


4. Adoption barriers

The Digital twin also has adoption barriers. These barriers can be a lack of understanding or fear of change. The technology is full of complexity and requires knowledge and expertise.


5. Lack of Standardization

Every hospital uses different tools and formats. There is no common rule for creation. This is very tough, such as sharing data between the hospitals, staff training, and working as a team.


Opportunities for the Future

The Digital twin offers many opportunities that improve healthcare in the future. They offer many facilities in the future. Such as.


  • Faster and better diagnosis where doctors can spot the disease

  • Compare all the symptoms with a million cases.

  • It suggests better clinical trials that simulate thousands of patient records

  • Just treating illnesses will help prevent them from happening.

  • Improves long-term illness

  • Reduce the time and cost of trials

  • Avoid risks to real people

  • It helps developing countries

  • Using Less Cost Devices


    digital twin in healthcare


What is are Digital Twin for Healthcare using wearables?

Wearable devices like smartwatches or fitness bands monitor a person's health data, such as heart rate, sleep, steps, etc, from the body in real time. The wearable data will help to create a digital twin of your body.


  1. Monitoring the data from wearable devices creates a virtual model of your body

  2. Doctors monitor real-time health

  3. Digital Twin can give warning signs of fever, higher heart rate, and low oxygen levels

  4. According to your digital twin, doctors can give you treatments that are good for you

  5. Doctors can test medicines and therapies virtually before training on the real body

  6. The digital twin will help to diagnose quickly

  7. You can get health checkups and advice from doctors with the help of a Digital Twin

  8. Some chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and asthma, can be better treated through wearable devices


What is the Role of Digital Twin in Healthcare: Current Trends?

The current trends of Digital Twin will help in smarter predictions, treatment suggestions, real-time data access, and reduce hospital visits. Here is the current trends overview that the Digital Twin company uses:


  • Integration with AI and Machine learning is used for smarter predictions and treatments

  • Use of Wearables and IoT Devices senses real-time data 

  • Remote Patient Care helps to care for the patient at home and reduces hospital visits

  • Hospital and Equipment Twins are used to monitor machines and systems

  • Virtual Surgery Planning helps in complex surgeries

  • Mental Health Monitoring helps to track emotional and stress data

  • Population Health Management is necessary for the government to spot diseases in communities


Conclusion

A Digital twin is more than a 3D model. It is best for planning and tracking the data of the healthcare process. From factories to the healthcare industry, it proves itself with its work. In the future, the use of the digital twin will be growing. The need for technology also rises in healthcare. The technologies will help to better understand medication and treatments, and keep people healthy. Overall, they have many benefits, but it has some challenges, such as cost, privacy,a nd lack of standards. The healthcare industry is smarter, faster, and safer with the help of these technologies.



Comments


bottom of page