On the Integration of Agents and Digital Twins in Healthcare

TLDR

Digital twins are virtual replicas that model a physical asset’s data, behavior, and interactions, enabling near real‑time monitoring and evaluation, and while widely used in industry, they hold disruptive potential in healthcare. This study investigates how digital twins can be integrated with agents and multi‑agent systems to enhance healthcare applications. The authors outline agent‑based digital twin concepts and demonstrate their approach through a case study on managing severe trauma using such a system.

Abstract

Abstract A digital twin is a digital representation of a physical asset reproducing its data model, its behaviour and its communication with other physical assets. Digital twins act as a digital replica for the physical object or process they represent, providing nearly real-time monitoring and evaluation without being in close proximity. Although most of their concrete applications can be found mainly in the industrial context, healthcare represents another relevant area where digital twins can have a disruptive impact. The main research question tackled by this paper is about the integration of digital twins with agents and Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) technologies in healthcare. After providing an overview of the application of digital twins in healthcare, in this paper, we discuss our vision about agent-based digital twins, and we present a first case study, about the application of agent-based digital twins to the management of severe traumas.