The potential and challenges of Health 4.0 to face COVID-19 pandemic: a rapid review

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated the need to evolve health services to reduce the risk of contagion and promote a collaborative environment even remotely. Advances in Industry 4.0, including the internet of things, mobile networks, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence make Health 4.0 possible to connect patients with healthcare professionals. Hence, the focus of this work is analyzing the potentiality, and challenges of state-of-the-art Health 4.0 applications to face the COVID-19 pandemic including augmented environments, diagnosis of the virus, forecasts, medical robotics, and remote clinical services. It is concluded that Health 4.0 can be applied in the prevention of contagion, improve diagnosis, promote virtual learning environments, and offer remote services. However, there are still ethical, technical, security, and legal challenges to be addressed. Additionally, more imaging datasets for COVID-19 detection need to be made available to the scientific community. Working in the areas of opportunity will help to address the new normal. Likewise, Health 4.0 can be applied not only in the COVID-19 pandemic, but also in future global viruses and natural disasters.

Critical Success Factors for Successful Implementation of Healthcare 4.0: A Literature Review and Future Research Agenda

“…Healthcare data must be protected by high security and privacy [48] and hence security standards such as HIPAA, COBIT, and DISHA have been developed. There is a need for all stakeholders to use such standards in a uniform manner, or else there will be an issue concerning the interoperability of the systems [49]. Thus, for the successful implementation of H 4.0, the platforms of all stakeholders should be able to communicate with one another [50].…”

Are Health Information Systems Ready for the Digital Transformation in Portugal? Challenges and Future Perspectives

“…Due to globalization and other circumstantial factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an increasing need to share health data outside of the physical space where they are generated [1,2,20]. Furthermore, the change in the clinical information consumption patterns, where the citizen assumes an increasingly significant role, is also a reason that highlights the importance of HIS.…”

“…Globalization, associated with many rapidly evolving factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, leads to an ever-increasing need to share health data outside of the physical space where they are generated [1,2]. Demographic changes, increased chronic diseases, rising health spending, and fairer healthcare access are global challenges [3], which, if associated with the increase in people's average life expectancy and the growth in their literacy, show the greater importance of new Health Information Systems (HISs) that allow efficient communication between the Health Systems (HS) and their stakeholders.…”

Digital health—high tech or high touch?

“…The disruption of traditional healthcare systems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically fueled innovations targeted at improving the quality and efficiency of care outside of the traditional office-based healthcare system [ 65 ]. Health 4.0 is a novel concept loosely based on the concept of Industry 4.0 or the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which describes the rapid change of technologies, industries, and societal patterns, blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological worlds.…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic provided a first opportunity to “beta-test” a few potential future applications and laid out potential applications for ongoing or potential future pandemics. These include the field of assisted diagnostics, augmented environments, disease predictions, and medical robotics that can be used in the prevention of contagion, improved diagnostics, digital teaching, and remote healthcare services [ 65 ].…”