The potential and challenges of Health 4.0 to face COVID-19 pandemic: a rapid review

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated the need to evolve health services to reduce the risk of contagion and promote a collaborative environment even remotely. Advances in Industry 4.0, including the internet of things, mobile networks, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence make Health 4.0 possible to connect patients with healthcare professionals. Hence, the focus of this work is analyzing the potentiality, and challenges of state-of-the-art Health 4.0 applications to face the COVID-19 pandemic including augmented environments, diagnosis of the virus, forecasts, medical robotics, and remote clinical services. It is concluded that Health 4.0 can be applied in the prevention of contagion, improve diagnosis, promote virtual learning environments, and offer remote services. However, there are still ethical, technical, security, and legal challenges to be addressed. Additionally, more imaging datasets for COVID-19 detection need to be made available to the scientific community. Working in the areas of opportunity will help to address the new normal. Likewise, Health 4.0 can be applied not only in the COVID-19 pandemic, but also in future global viruses and natural disasters.