Pervasive and Connected Digital Twins-A Vision for Digital Health

Healthcare is a primary domain where digital twins are being explored and applied. In this context, the main perspective explored in research and industry insofar is about the virtualization of standalone assets-such as devices, structures, and patients-in a digital twin as-an-application perspective. However, in the real world, these assets are often related to each other, taking part in the same processes and physical ecosystem. In this article, we discuss a vision in which digital twins are used to virtualizing contexts and situations involving multiple related strategic assets of a health organization, resulting in ecosystems of digital twins based on a digital-twin as-a-service perspective. Trauma management is considered as a specific concrete real-world example; nevertheless, open ecosystems of digital twins appear to be a blueprint for virtualizing complex physical realities applicable across different application domains.