Smart Technology Applications for Supporting Medicine and Healthcare after the COVID-19 Pandemic

Dear Colleagues, 

With the increasing popularity of vaccination, many countries and regions are gradually lifting restrictions on isolation periods and travel. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to be entering its final stages; however, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will not disappear quickly. For the restoration of normal life, application of smart technologies are necessary. The smart technology applications which will support healthcare after the COVID-19 pandemic are different from those used before the pandemic. Some smart technologies will be used more commonly, while others have lost public attention.

With the end stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in sight, an increasingly strong motivation for applying smart technologies is the drive to restore freedom of mobility. The widespread use of vaccine passports is an clear example. Only those travelers who have been vaccinated are permitted entry by some countries and regions. In addition, to promote safe cross-border travel, global establishments are using websites and apps for booking rooms, seats, or restaurants, which consider the requirements for vaccination in tourist destinations. However, there are some regions that have released their control over the movement of people, with relaxed restriction surrounding vaccine passports allowing populations to return to their pre-pandemic life.

In addition, the demand for some smart technology applications may disappear. For example, after widespread vaccination, the need to avoid human contact using smart technologies, such as robots and drones, is no longer as present as it has been. In addition, the costs of widespread deployment of robots are infeasible for long-term use. For these reasons, uses of robots and drones may fade after the pandemic. In addition, some hospital staff have expressed concerns surrounding the potential of being replaced by robots.

Furthermore, the performances of some existing smart technology applications are not sufficiently high. For example, the blood oxygen level detected by a smart bracelet is usually lower than the actual value. In addition, smart bracelets, smart watches, and smart body temperature monitors (i.e., infrared cameras/thermometers) are subject to the same limitation—that is, a patient is often contagious two days before the onset of obvious symptoms, and pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic patients cause more than half of infections. During the COVID-19 pandemic, most users can tolerate this problem; however, after the pandemic has passed, users of these applications will have higher expectations for the effectiveness of smart technology applications.

This Special Issue aims to summarize and collate the technical details of smart technology applications in medicine and in healthcare after the COVID-19 pandemic. These details will hold great interest for researchers in medicine, healthcare, technology management, ambient intelligence, information engineering, artificial intelligence, and computational intelligence, as well as for practicing managers and engineers. This Special Issue features a balance between state-of-the-art research and practical applications—providing a forum for researchers and practitioners to review and disseminate quality research work on smart technology applications for medicine and healthcare, and to present critical issues for further development.

Prof. Dr. Tin-Chih Chen
Guest Editor

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• smart robot (drone)
• wearable devices
• smart phone
• smart bracelet
• applications
• location-based services
• smart surveillance system
• smart temperature monitoring system
• 3D printer
• others to medical and health care after the COVID-19 pandemic