Recent Advances in Digital Healthcare and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

The research objects of the cyber-medical domain are highly complex due to the interdisciplinary nature coming from the need to combine economical, technical and medical/physiological knowledge. Achieving development in this field is extremely research-intensive and requires complex thinking and the involvement of regulatory requirements from the beginning of the conceptualization which demand evidence-based certification guidelines.

Modern medical devices are based on deep understandings of complex phenomena related to physiology, biology, pathology, etc., connected to the economical knowledge determining worthiness and eligibility of funding in accordance with regulations and guidelines. The most challenging task here is that even the base research should serve the latter marketability in order to improve the life of people through improved healthcare services.

The operations of healthcare institutions and healthcare services are extremely complex. They have evolved enormously over the past decade, and digitalization has been especially facilitated by the recent pandemic. In the case of medical devices, innovative data-integration solutions, such as augmented and virtual reality devices, wearable devices, and diagnostic solutions, represent a new segment of the market, and their development is a priority area. Nevertheless, these anticipated technological developments have the potential to increase inequalities and open discussion around responsible and ethically aligned design. The challenges posed by new technologies and methodologies can easily affect the end-users of the technologies in the incomplete legal-regulatory environment and the "sea" of healthcare systems and solutions. While it is driven by a rising, fast-acting start-up culture, the speed of development and deployment carries risks, especially in the healthcare domain. The new EU MDR/IVDR regulation has been a milestone in the legal regulatory environment but has made it more difficult to enter the market . Novel standardization efforts appeared to facilitate the development process for medical devices. The new procedures require a complex approach, beginning in the design phase, to comply with the regulatory environment, from the need to conduct evidence-based research to ensuring the system's life cycle. AI and life-model-based solutions are a particular challenge, as the certification of healthcare products requires the interpretation and explanation of the decision-making process of these devices and systems.

The aim of this Special Issue is to provide a space to showcase the challenges encountered at all stages of the complex development life cycle in digital health and medical technology through exciting and innovative pilot works. Properly conducted systematic literature reviews, well-described and sustained scientific concepts, pilot technology and algorithm designs, successfully applied protocol design, and development-related scientific articles are welcomed. It is only through these good and best practices that it will possible to establish the right methods of evidence-based digital health.

This Special Issue will select from the best research papers on a global scale to introduce novel achievements, techniques, and findings related to the digital healthcare domain. We welcome original research and review articles related to the topics provided.

Potential topics to be covered:

• Development of complex cyber-medical systems;
• Worthiness and marketability regarding medical systems;
• Data-driven modeling and simulation of biological systems;
• Management and performance assessment related to cyber-medical systems;
• Evidence based research of cyber-medical systems;
• Machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques in the digital healthcare domain;
• Control and estimation of biological and physiological systems supporting digital healthcare solutions;
• Research of distributed, parallel, and ledger technologies in the cyber-medical domain.

Dr. Tamás Haidegger
Dr. Eigner György
Prof. Dr. Levente Kovács
Dr. Zrubka Zsombor
Guest Editors

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