Viceconti Marco, McCulloch Andrew D
Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli, Bologna, Italy.
Stud Health Technol Inform. 2011;170:49-82.
Life is the result of an intricate systemic interaction between many processes occurring at radically different spatial and temporal scales. Every day, worldwide biomedical research and clinical practice produce a huge amount of information on such processes. However, this information being highly fragmented, its integration is largely left to the human actors who find this task increasingly and ever more demanding in a context where the information available continues to increase exponentially. Investments in the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) research are largely motivated by the need for integration in healthcare. As all health information becomes digital, the complexity of health care will continue to evolve, translating into an ever increasing pressure which will result from a growing demand in parallel to limited budgets. Hence, the best way to achieve the dream of personalised, preventive, and participative medicine at sustainable costs will be through the integration of all available data, information and knowledge.
生命是在截然不同的空间和时间尺度上发生的许多过程之间复杂的系统相互作用的结果。每天，全球范围内的生物医学研究和临床实践都会产生大量关于这些过程的信息。然而，这些信息高度分散，其整合在很大程度上留给了人力，在可用信息持续呈指数级增长的背景下，人们发现这项任务越来越艰巨。对虚拟生理人（VPH）研究的投资很大程度上是出于医疗保健整合的需求。随着所有健康信息数字化，医疗保健的复杂性将持续演变，这将转化为越来越大的压力，这种压力源于需求增长与预算有限并存的局面。因此，以可持续成本实现个性化、预防性和参与性医疗梦想的最佳途径将是整合所有可用的数据、信息和知识。
