The 'AI turn' for digital health: A futuristic view

The unprecedented implications of digital health innovations, being co-produced by the mainstreaming and integration of artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and cyber-physical systems (CPS) in healthcare, are examined in a new technology horizon-scanning article. This digital transformation of healthcare is facilitated by the rapid rise in Big Data and real-time Big Data analytics. The detailed findings are published in OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology.

Vural Özdemir, MD, Ph.D., DABCP, Editor-in-Chief of OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology is the author of the article entitled "The Big Picture on the 'AI Turn' for Digital Health: The Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems." He explores the current applications of AI to life sciences and digital health, for example, in interpreting the massive amounts of data generated by genomics and other omics applications. Dr. Özdemir describes the IoT and provides digital health-related examples of CPS, such as wearables for cardiac monitoring and healthcare robots.

"Digital data are highly fluid and can rapidly move across spaces and places whereas the physical data and humans are much slower and exist in different scales than our digital footprints," says Vural Özdemir. "It is therefore timely for the system sciences and integrative biology communities to critically engage with digital health and the related technologies such as AI, IoT and CPS."