Healthcare 4.0: trends, challenges and research directions

Abstract

This paper aims at examining the trends, challenges and theoretical gaps in the implementation of Healthcare 4.0 (H4.0) based on a scoping review of the literature. For that, we searched journal articles in four widely known databases and screened the retrieved articles to obtain a publications’ portfolio. Our findings indicate that, despite the recency of the subject, research in H4.0 has been conducted in an interdisciplinary way with a diversified set of applications and functionalities. In terms of its implementation, H4.0 has been more commonly found in hospitals’ information flows, especially the ones related to healthcare treatments. The identified implementation trends, however, neglect a more holistic approach for H4.0, which originated three main research directions for this topic. Although identified as a trending topic in the area of healthcare operations management, literature on H4.0 may be viewed as randomly conceived, lacking academic alignment and practical orientation based on a grounded theory, which we aim at providing with the present study.

Keywords:

• Healthcare 4.0
• smart healthcare
• healthcare operations management
• literature review

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Guilherme Luz Tortorella

Guilherme Luz Tortorella is an Associate Professor of the Department of Systems and Production Engineering of the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil. He is the Head of Research of the Productivity and Continous Improvement Lab and the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Lean Systems. He is one of the founders of the Brazilian Conference on Lean Systems and has more than 18 years with practical and academic experience with manufacturing and operations management.

Flávio Sanson Fogliatto

Flavio S. Fogliatto holds a Full Professor position in the IE Department of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. He received his PhD in Industrial & Systems Engineering from Rutgers University, USA. Prof. Fogliatto specialises in the research areas of Quality Engineering, Operations Research, and Healthcare Analytics. His work has been published in Chemometrics, PP&C, Computers & Industrial Engineering, International Journal of Production Research and International Journal of Production Economics, among others.

Alejandro Mac Cawley Vergara

Alejandro F. Mac Cawley is an Associate Professor with a joint appointment in the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department and the Agricultural Economics Department at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (PUC) in Santiago, Chile. His research interests focus on the application of OR techniques to natural resource-based systems and healthcare with a focus on supply chain coordination, production planning, lean production, industry 4.0, scheduling, decision support systems and reliability.

Roberto Vassolo

Roberto Vassolo is a Full Professor of the IAE Business School at the Universidad Austral, Argentina, and Visiting Profess oat the Department of Industrial Engineering and Systemes at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His main research field has been Strategic Management in High Uncertainty contexts, Strategy under the Business Cycle, Competitive Dynamics in Natural Resource Industries, and Adaptation of Organisational Routines.

Rapinder Sawhney

Rapinder Sawhney is a Full Professor and Heath Fellow in Business and Engineering at the Industrial and Systems Engineering at University of Tennessee, USA. He is also the Director of the Centre for Advanced Systems Research and Education (CASRE) and is the author of several articles on Lean Management and Operational Excellence.