Digital Twin–Based Health Care Facilities Management

Abstract

Health care ensures the health and safety of people, and as such requires effective management of facilities. Unfortunately, current approaches to health care facilities management (HFM) are based on an “if it breaks, we fix it” approach. There is still no effective real-time monitoring of health care facilities, causing a lack of effective preventive maintenance. We propose digital twin (DT), which can monitor equipment and systems in real time and enable bidirectional coordination, to address the shortcomings of current health care facilities management processes. DT is the virtual representation of a physical asset in all instances and in real time. This study aims to identify the shortcomings in HFM and propose a DT prototype to improve HFM. The study adopts a mixed methodology including a literature review, a case study integrating interviews, and scenario planning. The study identified basic DT concepts and data dynamics. The study identified the adopted DT components including virtual design/modeling technologies, sensors, data analytics techniques, communication networks, and mobile devices, including the components integration and data flow management of the DT platform. Functional implementations for scenario deployment were also developed. The functional implementations addressed the following scenarios: monitoring the performance of the HVAC system using pressure criteria, monitoring indoor air quality (IAQ), monitoring the performance of pulsed light for deactivating bacteria and viruses and radio frequency (RF), as they affect the performance of the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. This paper concludes by highlighting the benefits and limitations of DT application in health care facilities management.