The Advent of the Digital Twin: A Prospective in Healthcare in the Next Decade

Industry 4.0 is facing a fast–development in its technologies, automatizing and restructuring processes in order to make them data–driven. However, its uses are not exclusive for the industry as its name suggests, since it can be extended to health sector. In the next decade, the Digital Twin (a digital replica of a physical asset) is going to face a spread into mainstream market due to its potential applications in the healthcare sector, such as a 24/7 monitoring of the evolution of cancer and its treatment, a heart based on cloud–computing, an even receive medical treatment that adapts to every person. But before seeing this as a reality, there are several obstacles that the researchers need to overcome for the proposed Digital Twins to reach its full–potential.