A glowing 3D display of the human body with real-time data floats above an operating room floor. It shifts and rotates with each gesture, allowing doctors to simulate treatments, test surgical plans, and predict patient outcomes, all before making a single incision.
This isn’t science fiction. It’s the power of digital twins—intelligent virtual models of complex, real-world systems like the human heart. These tools, and a wave of emerging and fast-developing technologies, give us a unique opportunity to transform women’s healthcare.
Digital twins are already changing the healthcare system, and at CES 2025, we saw healthcare’s next frontier. Dassault Système’s immersive exhibit showed the body as a living city with the brain as City Hall, the heart as the power plant, and data-rich “veins” carrying insights across organs. Attendees got an up-close look at how these models can predict disease, personalize surgical plans, and test therapeutic strategies in a risk-free, virtual environment.
Why does this matter for women’s health? Traditional research has long treated women’s specific needs as an afterthought, leaving us underrepresented in clinical trials and datasets. This gap drives misdiagnoses and one‑size‑fits‑all treatments that often fail to address women’s unique health needs. Digital twins can change that by creating individualized simulations based on each woman’s unique anatomy and health history.
A groundbreaking study published in the Open Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 2024 explores the development of a digital twin for the female pelvic floor. This critical and complex structure is often overlooked in traditional care. By integrating imaging, biomechanical testing, and patient-reported outcomes, this digital twin can offer personalized insights into pelvic pain, incontinence, prolapse, and even complications from childbirth or conditions like endometriosis, which historically has required invasive surgery to diagnose.
Imagine being able to simulate the effects of labor, surgery, or therapy before they happen. With digital twins, we could diagnose earlier, treat more effectively, and approach birth with greater safety and confidence. This is what it looks like to give women’s health the precision and attention it deserves.
Think about it: over 85% of women experience obstetric trauma to the pelvic floor during childbirth, yet most never receive tailored care or long-term monitoring. Digital twins could change that. By making each woman’s unique physiology visible and testable in real time, we can shift from reactive medicine to proactive, personalized care.
That’s why I’m so inspired by the thousands of health innovators who join us at CES. They’re using AI, cloud computing, and digital twin technology to tackle issues like menopause, maternal health, and reproductive care head-on, often because they have experienced this gap in care themselves.
The future of healthcare is personal. Digital twins make that possible. With Women’s Health Month in May delivering a renewed focus on women’s health and wellness, let’s carry the momentum forward by championing technologies that treat women as the unique individuals they are, not just data points.
At CTA, our Technology and Standards Working Group is developing best practices and performance requirements for women’s health technology, but so much more is possible. Let’s invest in tools that simulate real bodies, reflect different experiences, and power a new era of care that reflects the real needs of real women.
