Intelligent Medical Devices and Healthcare Management: Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

The innovations in mechanical engineering, artificial intelligence, sensing, robotics, Internet of Things (IoT) and healthcare information systems are rapidly converging to revolutionize the design and management of modern medical devices. In a nutshell, the traditional medical devices have been transformed step by step from passive mechanical devices to intelligent cyber-physical devices that can sense physiological states, process multimodal information, assist the doctor in making clinical decisions, and adjust to the patient's needs. This review explores the latest developments of intelligent medical devices from an interdisciplinary point of view, focusing on mechanical design, artificial intelligence, machine learning, the digital twin, wearable systems, robotics, predictive maintenance, remote healthcare and healthcare management. The review brings together the contributions of mechanical engineering to provide reliable structures, actuation mechanisms, biomedical materials, ergonomic systems, microfluidic technologies, rehabilitation robots, and minimally invasive technologies, and explores how AI can support perception, prediction, personalization, anomaly detection, decision support and autonomous operation. Focus is paid to AI-based medical devices, digital-twin medical equipment management, AI-driven wearable systems, robotic healthcare technologies, and AI-driven medical equipment data-driven maintenance. Challenges with data quality, interoperability, cyber security, explainability, model drift, regulatory compliance, human factors, clinical validation are critically discussed. It is suggested to introduce a conceptual intelligent medical-device ecosystem comprising both physical devices and edge/cloud computing, AI analytics, digital twins, healthcare management platforms, and human oversight. The review recommends that future intelligent healthcare systems should shift from smart devices to trustworthy, interconnected, adaptive and patient-centric cyber-physical ecosystems. The research directions identified open up avenues for creating safer, more explainable, energy efficient, personalised, and clinically deployable intelligent medical technologies.