Applications of Fog Computing, IoT, and Cloud Computing in Healthcare Multilayer Networks

Fog computing and the IoT are increasingly vital technologies in developing smart healthcare solutions. This synergy offers a promising avenue to enhance healthcare delivery, patient monitoring, and health data management, especially with the growing demand for efficient, real-time healthcare services. The impact of leveraging multilayer network theory systems, where fog computing acts as the copula nodes linking different layers, on smart healthcare is profound and multifaceted. This approach enhances the architecture and functionality of healthcare systems, leading to significant improvements in patient care, system efficiency, and innovation. This chapter focuses on the main features of telemedicine platforms rotating around fog computing, showing the main cost/benefit improvements, even regarding quality of care and patient-centric considerations. Blockchains and artificial intelligence scale up the capacity of interconnected ecosystems, with value-co-creating patterns shared by patients, doctors, and other stakeholders.