Industry 4.0 and its applications in the healthcare sector: A sistematic review

Industry 4.0 (I4), the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is having a strong impact in all industrial sector but, although less evident, it is also bringing important results in other fields such as Healthcare Systems. In fact, Hospitals can be effectively considered smart factories because they are “factory” which “context-aware assists people and machines in execution of their tasks”. Hospitals are very difficult entity to manage and the application of Industry 4.0 technologies could have a deep impact on them. However, a systematic and extensive review of recent research on it is has been unavailable. Accordingly to that, this paper conducts a literature review on the combined use of the key words “Industry 4.0” and “Health 4.0”. Altogether, 46 papers related to such topics are grouped into eight research categories and reviewed. The aim of this paper is to investigate the applicability, the advantages and the weakness of Industry 4.0 paradigms in the Healthcare sector. In fact, on the one hand they could ensure and increase the safety of patients, the quality of life and other health care activities. On the other, the recent entry into application of the General Data Protection Regulation, May 2018, has required strong rules and limitations on the data management. All the data belonging to the healthcare sector could be defined as sensitive data. The value of this work is a critical analysis on the actual applications of Industry 4.0 in the Healthcare Sector with a focus on the Italian context.