Evolution of Simulation and Digital Twin in Health Care: From Discovery to Design and Integration

Over the past two decades, simulation and Digital Twin (DT) technologies have become increasingly prevalent in health care. These technologies have significant potential to advance modern medicine, enhance clinical decision-making and team performanceTeam performance, improve healthcare deliveryHealthcare delivery, reduce cost, and improve patient outcomes. This chapter provides an overview of these technologies and their emerging applications in the field of health care, including opportunities to accelerate discovery in basic science, delivery of more realistic training opportunities that advance clinician competence and interprofessional teamwork, and an efficient and cost-effective approach to analyze, improve, and monitor clinical workflows, healthcare deliveryHealthcare delivery systems, and their performance. This emerging field fosters multidisciplinary researchMultidisciplinary research among healthcare professionals, information technology experts, engineers, and data scientists, all working together to better serve our society. Widespread adoption of these technologies will require solutions to address several technical, ethical, and regulatory challenges. These solutions will require a close collaboration between industry, academic centers, and government to develop a thoughtful approach that aligns implementation and integration of simulation and DT technologies into the healthcare workplace with measurement of meaningful outcomes to ensure broad-based access benefit from these important tools.