The first draft of the VHT Roadmap has just been published! Its purpose is to support the European Commission with an initial specification of the needed steps for pursuing the development of a VHT-based healthcare to trigger European researchers, clinicians, industries, and regulators effective engagement. This first draft of the Roadmap highlights what is currently the envisioned structure of what will be in a year time the final version. As such, it offers a unique opportunity to gauge the status of the discussions in the field of VHT, allowing readers to gain insights into its concepts on how different elements can be used for an integrated Virtual Human Twin.
EDITH encourages specialised communities revolving around the VHT to provide input, suggestions, and feedback, also through its slack channel in the In Silico World Community of Practice to facilitate dynamic discussions amongst them. Critical remarks and additional contributions are welcome, together with comments highlighting appreciated sections.
The conceptual map described in the document not only represents the evolution of the EDITH Roadmap but also how its elements are related to each other in terms of timing and maturity. The heart of the roadmap is the vision, which helps to understand what is meant by VHT, how it can be achieved and how its evolution can be envisioned.
Academics and practitioners, like-minded professionals worldwide, should understand whether the described state of the art succeeds in capturing the essential elements that constitute the starting points of the VHT, or whether something important is missing. Indeed, the VHT concept beyond social, ethical, and legal innuendos could be enablers or barriers to the VHT realisation. Thus, is there something that need to be changed in current laws and regulations to make it possible to attain the VHT vision and to overcome the challenge due to the various languages used?
From the technological perspective, complex computational models have been realised and impressive volumes of data have been processed or generated. This is why, this document also describes the technologies that need to be developed and the related challenges that must be overcome to reach the maturity needed for realising the VHT and its different elements to be able to generate sustainable value.
The final part of this draft deals with the purpose of completing the EDITH Coordination and Support Action, for which many further contributions from the VHT Community are still expected. Whereas the EDITH CSA is leading the effort of drafting the preliminary version of the VHT Roadmap, with the support of stakeholders from multiple industrial and research areas, it is the VHT ecosystem that needs to share and validate the outcome to contribute to the final Roadmap outline in support of the European Commission decision on which initiatives should be undertaken in the future, even beyond EDITH.
To help to do so, join us on the EDITH Public Discussion SLACK Channel to give your input on the first draft of the VHT Roadmap (Deliverable 3.2), thus propelling the VHT development!