Publicação
Digital twins in healthcare : exploring the drivers of adoption and value creation
| Resumo: | Healthcare systems face mounting pressure from demographic ageing, rising chronic disease prevalence, workforce constraints, and escalating costs. Digital Twins (DTs) have emerged as a promising digital innovation, enabling high-fidelity virtual representations of patients and hospital systems for simulation, prediction, and optimisation. Despite technological progress and growing investment, DT adoption in healthcare remains largely confined to isolated pilot projects.This dissertation examined why DTs struggle to scale beyond experimentation and investigates the key drivers shaping their adoption and value creation in healthcare. It adopted an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, integrating a literature review, twelve semi-structured expert interviews with healthcare and digital health stakeholders, and a healthcare consumer survey. The analysis was grounded in the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) framework, and Dynamic Capabilities Theory. The findings showed that DT adoption is primarily driven by technological readiness and organisational integration. Particularly data interoperability, workflow alignment, governance structures, and leadership commitment. Individual attitudes such as trust, openness, and risk perception do not function as primary drivers but mediate how organisational capabilities translate into adoption. Survey results further indicated that perceived usefulness is context-dependent and shaped by health experience and dissatisfaction with existing healthcare systems. Overall, the study reframes DT adoption as an organisational transformation challenge and concludes that scalable implementation depends on institutional capability alignment rather than incremental gains in individual user acceptance. |
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| Autores principais: | Prillwitz, Giulia Alexandra |
| Assunto: | Digital twins Healthcare innovation Technology adoption Digital health Gémeos digitais Inovação em saúde Adoção de tecnologia Capacidades dinâmicas Saúde digital |
| Ano: | 2026 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | dissertação de mestrado |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade Católica Portuguesa |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Veritati - Repositório Institucional da Universidade Católica Portuguesa |
| Resumo: | Healthcare systems face mounting pressure from demographic ageing, rising chronic disease prevalence, workforce constraints, and escalating costs. Digital Twins (DTs) have emerged as a promising digital innovation, enabling high-fidelity virtual representations of patients and hospital systems for simulation, prediction, and optimisation. Despite technological progress and growing investment, DT adoption in healthcare remains largely confined to isolated pilot projects.This dissertation examined why DTs struggle to scale beyond experimentation and investigates the key drivers shaping their adoption and value creation in healthcare. It adopted an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, integrating a literature review, twelve semi-structured expert interviews with healthcare and digital health stakeholders, and a healthcare consumer survey. The analysis was grounded in the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) framework, and Dynamic Capabilities Theory. The findings showed that DT adoption is primarily driven by technological readiness and organisational integration. Particularly data interoperability, workflow alignment, governance structures, and leadership commitment. Individual attitudes such as trust, openness, and risk perception do not function as primary drivers but mediate how organisational capabilities translate into adoption. Survey results further indicated that perceived usefulness is context-dependent and shaped by health experience and dissatisfaction with existing healthcare systems. Overall, the study reframes DT adoption as an organisational transformation challenge and concludes that scalable implementation depends on institutional capability alignment rather than incremental gains in individual user acceptance. |
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