Experts' View on the Future Outlook on the Materialization, Expectations and Implementation of Digital Twins in Healthcare

In this paper, we examine how experts in digital transformation of healthcare envision the application of digital twins (DTs). The concept of a DT refers to a digital replica of potential and actual physical assets, processes, people, places, systems and devices that can be used for various purposes including scientific experiments, simulations and prediction of intervention outcomes. DTs are an emerging technological vision and while evocative as a term it holds different promises and connotations for different application areas and may evolve in very different directions. To examine how these directions can develop and impact healthcare, we used the Delphi method to reach a consensus among experts on three different research questions we put forward, namely how experts see the materialization, expectations and implementation of a DT in healthcare. We followed up with a survey with open questions to the experts aiming for a deeper consideration on the top ranked topics from the Delphi study