Design and Development of Healthcare Systems and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

With the increasing complexity of connected health and the advent of digital health, accelerated by the most recent development due to the pandemic, it is becoming increasingly clear that the medical and health systems can no longer tolerate the lack of integration across disciplines of research, cure and care, nor the traditional silos at the IT and professional levels. At the same time, the proliferation of heterogeneous technologies, in laboratories, hospitals and at home, is both a blessing and a curse from a technological point of view: different devices, tools and platforms can counteract the initiatives to unify and standardize. Trends toward increased homogeneity (such as GDPR, HL7 and many other large-scale initiatives and consortia) compete with centrifugal forces that incentivize diversification, among which are personalized medicine and the concept of a more or less abstract digital twin for organs, systems and ultimately the patient.

In this Special Issue, we welcome technical contributions that showcase, from a technical and technological point of view, how and why these competing trends are evolving, the challenges faced and solutions that work, as well as the attempts that have failed when there is a strong analysis of the specific and contextual reasons and clear evidence for the lessons learned.

The potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Technical analysis of IT systems for health and medicine from the point of view of hospitals, networks, medical service and community health centers, and at the public health level;
• Technologies for the evolution and customization of IT systems and platforms for health;
• Technical integration of IT health systems;
• Programming languages and domain-specific languages for health and medical research support;
• Ontologies, nosologies, taxonomies and the semantic layer of knowledge mapping and integration related to medical and health research and practice;
• Data management cycle for integration and long-term reuse;
• Technical analysis of IT systems for health and medicine from the point of view of hospitals, networks, medical service and community health centers, and at the public health level;
• Technologies for the evolution and customization of IT systems and platforms for health;
• Infusion of privacy, accountability, security in medical, clinical and health-related research and care, including retrofitting existing systems;
• Case studies and applications of all the above are welcome, including in the context of laboratories, diagnoses, clinical interventions and patient–public interventions, as well as preventative measures and assessments. The scopes at the individual, community and public health are all welcome.

Prof. Dr. Tiziana Margaria
Guest Editor

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• digital health
• medical and health systems
• personalized medicine