The ever-growing number of medical services offered by digital healthcare applications is greatly influencing the medical sector on a global scale. These applications improve patient follow-up through predictive, preventative, personalized, participative and precision medicine. This new therapeutic era provides novel innovative approaches in medical care that can be understood as digital therapy.
Digital Therapy thus presents an overview of the many incremental technologies in digital healthcare. Among those covered are humanoid assistance robots developed to meet caring challenges and artificial intelligence techniques that show promising results in the early diagnosis of certain chronic diseases. The book also outlines recommendations for reducing incapacitation in healthsystem management during coronary disease epidemics.
Table of Contents
Introduction ix
Part 1 Medical Innovation 1
Chapter 1 A Conceptual Framework for Health Innovations 3
1.1 Introduction 3
1.2 Defining innovation 3
1.2.1 Different levels of innovation 4
1.2.2 Endogenous factors of disruptive innovation in digital health 7
1.2.3 Exogenous factors of disruptive innovation in digital health 9
Chapter 2 The Covid-19 Pandemic, an Exogenous Factor of Innovation 15
2.1 Origin 15
2.2 How the pandemic began 15
2.2.1 January 24, 2020: first cases of infection with the new virus in Europe reported by the WHO 16
2.2.2 January 28, 2020: implementation of the first measure of the European Union’s health crisis management plan 16
2.2.3 March 8, 2020: quarantine of the northern part of Italy 17
2.2.4 March 10-12, 2020: financial support measures announced by the European Union 17
2.2.5 March 11, 2020: the WHO reclassifies the “epidemic” as a “pandemic” 18
2.3 Covid-19: digital therapy as a response to the fight against the pandemic 18
2.3.1 Advanced imaging techniques for diagnosis 19
2.3.2 Telemedicine 20
2.3.3 Smart epidemiological maps 20
2.3.4 Detecting the virus using intelligent tests 20
2.3.5 Treatment of the disease using simulation analysis and decision support techniques 21
2.4 Conclusion 21
Chapter 3 Digital Therapy: For Which Health Needs? 23
3.1 Introduction 23
3.2 Background on digital health needs 23
3.3 Expressing health needs within populations 24
3.4 Examining the proposed digital technologies 27
3.4.1 AI-assisted remote patient monitoring 27
3.4.2 AI-assisted telemedicine 27
3.4.3 AI techniques 28
3.4.4 Robotics technology in health 28
3.4.5 Supply chain with drones 29
3.5 Mapping the population’s digital health needs 31
3.6 Conclusion 39
Chapter 4 AI Techniques Involved in the Design of Innovative Solutions 41
4.1 Applied health techniques 42
4.1.1 Automatic learning 42
4.1.2 Natural language processing 43
4.1.3 Signal processing and computer vision 43
4.1.4 Artificial neural networks 44
4.2 Examples of AI techniques in health 47
4.2.1 Multi-agent systems for designing solutions for gene recognition through medical imaging 47
4.2.2 Multi-agent systems or distributed AI to enable the design of solutions for predictive medicine 47
4.2.3 Autonomous robotics and signal processing for decision support solutions: diagnosis and therapy 48
4.2.4 ML and augmented reality for diagnosis assistance based on holomedicine concepts 49
4.2.5 Natural language processing and ML for remote monitoring of physiological parameters 49
4.2.6 Robotics and human language for supply management 49
4.3 Ecosystem of actors involved in the design of innovative solutions 49
4.4 Some challenges of AI 52
4.4.1 Artificial form of surveillance capitalism 52
4.4.2 Cyberattacks 52
4.4.3 Cost of assessing AI-assisted technologies in health 53
Chapter 5 Comparative Analysis of the Diffusion of Innovative Solutions between 2020 and 2030 55
5.1 Origin of the data for the analysis 55
5.2 Data analysis 56
5.2.1 View by country 56
5.2.2 General view 59
5.3 Presentation of AI health initiatives 59
5.3.1 Creation of platforms integrating AI 59
5.3.2 Diagnostic assistance solutions using AI techniques 61
5.3.3 Creating intelligent solutions for medical research 65
5.4 Overview of health AI legislation 67
5.4.1 European approach to AI regulation 67
5.4.2 Regulating and supporting AI in healthcare 67
5.4.3 Scaling up AI regulatory policy in line with medical practice 68
5.4.4 Reception of the regulatory proposals 68
5.5 Conclusion 69
Part 2 Digital Therapy and its Transformative Approach 71
Chapter 6 Strategies for the Sustainable Adoption of Digital Health Innovation 73
6.1 Introduction: adopting digital health technology 73
6.2 State of the art of digital health advice 74
6.2.1 Digital technologies for more efficient quality of care 74
6.2.2 Hospital at home 74
6.2.3 Evidence of sound and reliable comprehensive scientific data from the use of digital health technology 75
6.2.4 Societal beliefs 75
6.3 Theory of adoption of health technology solutions 77
6.4 General factors in the adoption of DHTs 78
6.5 Ecosystem of actors promoting the adoption of technology initiatives 79
6.5.1 Ecosystem of actors for the adoption of a health innovation 79
6.5.2 Adoption of digital technology by patients and the general public 80
6.6 Conclusion 82
Chapter 7 Indicators of Change in Healthcare Systems 83
7.1 Introduction 83
7.2 New governance that calls for the consolidation of a hospital business model 83
7.2.1 Case study: Canada 85
7.3 Internationalization of digital health activities 86
7.3.1 Case study: France 86
7.4 Conclusion 87
Chapter 8 A Radical Change in the Care System 89
8.1 Introduction 89
8.2 New organization of the health system 90
8.2.1 Creation of a single European cloud for medical care and research 90
8.2.2 Creation of a “one-stop shop” per continent for the development of research and development programs 92
8.2.3 Changing rules in the calls for projects 93
8.2.4 A new strategy for the production of scientific content 93
8.2.5 A new strategy to accelerate digital health innovations 94
8.3 Conclusion 95
Appendix: Mapping Digital Innovations in Health 97
Glossary 181
References 183
Index 189
