Stakeholder Perspectives on Digital Twin Implementation Challenges in Healthcare: Insights from a Provider Digital Twin Case Study

2025-07-31

AI Summary

This study systematically identifies multidimensional sociotechnical barriers hindering the clinical implementation of medical digital twins. Employing an interdisciplinary qualitative design grounded in the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) 2.0, we conducted semi-structured interviews with family medicine specialists, organizational psychologists, engineers, and implementation scientists. Thematic coding revealed 66 distinct challenges, categorized across seven domains: data, financial, operational, organizational, human, regulatory/ethical, and technical. Our key contribution lies in the first integrated analysis of perspectives from these four critical stakeholder groups—clarifying shared concerns (e.g., data privacy, interoperability, regulatory compliance) alongside group-specific needs—and proposing tailored implementation strategies that reconcile functional requirements with contextual practice variations. This work advances both theoretical understanding and pragmatic pathways for cross-disciplinary deployment of medical digital twins in real-world healthcare settings.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Humans and AI: Planning and Decision Support for Human-Machine Teams
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Representing, Reasoning, and Using Provenance, Trust

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web applications in cross-disciplinary domains and verticals such as mixed reality, smart cities, and digital health
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

Digital twin (DT) technology holds immense potential for transforming healthcare systems through real-time monitoring, predictive analysis, and agile interventions to support various decision-making needs. However, its successful implementation depends on addressing a range of complex sociotechnical challenges. Using a case study of provider workload DT, this research investigates DT implementation challenges in healthcare by capturing the perspectives of four distinct stakeholders: family medicine specialists (FMS), organizational psychologists (OP), engineers (EE), and implementation scientists (IS). We conducted semi-structured interviews guided by the updated Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR 2.0), a widely used implementation science framework for understanding factors that influence implementation outcomes. We then mapped each stakeholder group's preferences and concerns, revealing a nuanced landscape of converging and diverging perspectives that highlight both shared and group-specific implementation barriers. Through thematic coding, the 66 identified challenges were categorized into seven domains: data-related, financial and economic, operational, organizational, personnel, regulatory and ethical, and technological. Our findings reveal shared concerns such as data privacy and security, interoperability, and regulatory compliance. However, divergences also emerged, reflecting each group's functional focus. These findings emphasize the need for a multidisciplinary, stakeholder-sensitive approach that addresses both functional and practical concerns, highlighting the importance of tailored implementation strategies to support successful DT adoption in healthcare.

Problem

• Investigates digital twin implementation challenges in healthcare
• Identifies stakeholder-specific barriers across seven domains
• Highlights need for multidisciplinary, tailored adoption strategies

Innovation

• Digital Twin for real-time healthcare monitoring
• Stakeholder-sensitive multidisciplinary implementation approach
• Thematic coding of 66 challenges into domains