Digital health in cardiovascular medicine: An overview of key applications and clinical impact by the Portuguese Society of Cardiology Study Group on Digital Health

Abstract

Digital health interventions including telehealth, mobile health, artificial intelligence, big data, robotics, extended reality, computational and high-fidelity bench simulations are an integral part of the path toward precision medicine. Current applications encompass risk factor modification, chronic disease management, clinical decision support, diagnostics interpretation, preprocedural planning, evidence generation, education, and training. Despite the acknowledged potential, their development and implementation have faced several challenges and constraints, meaning few digital health tools have reached daily clinical practice. As a result, the Portuguese Society of Cardiology Study Group on Digital Health set out to outline the main digital health applications, address some of the roadblocks hampering large-scale deployment, and discuss future directions in support of cardiovascular health at large.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence; Big data; Cardiologia; Cardiology; Cardiovascular disease; Doença cardiovascular; Inteligência artificial; Medicina de precisão; Precision medicine; Robotics; Robótica; Simulation; Simulação; Telehealth; Telemedicina; eHealth; mHealth.