The number and proportion of elderly people are growing at an unprecedented rate. By 2030, the population aged 60 and over is expected to constitute one-sixth of the global population, and the number will increase to about 2.1 billion worldwide by 2050. The ageing population is exacerbating the shortage of health and social security resources, posing a severe challenge to the existing healthcare system. Consequently, using innovative, integrated and digitally supported solutions is an urgent challenge to address the complex medical and organisational issues caused by the health and care needs of elderly people.

Chronic lifestyle-related conditions, particularly cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), are rising rapidly worldwide and placing an increasing economic and organizational burden on healthcare systems. Recent projections suggest that the number of people living with CVD could increase by up to 90% between 2025 and 2050, further intensifying pressure on already strained services. Effectively addressing this growing challenge requires continuous risk assessment, early and timely intervention, and sustained support for long-term lifestyle change. Digital health services offer new opportunities to integrate prevention, monitoring, and personalized care, fostering more proactive and coordinated approaches across disciplines and sectors.

Modern medicine has shown that diabetes is not a single chronic disease but a constellation of pathological conditions that have glucose metabolism dysfunction as a common element. Estimates indicate that globally, the number of people with diabetes is steadily increasing and could exceed 700 million by 2045. Furthermore, over time, the various forms of diabetes cause many complications affecting the cardiovascular system and nerve endings, kidney function, and the integrity of the retina in the eye, and also compromise cholesterol metabolism.

Therefore, the worsening of the difficulties faced by healthcare systems due to diabetes does not depend solely on the increase in the number of diabetics but must be multiplied by taking into account the need to manage complications. In other words, it is no longer enough to simply monitor blood sugar levels; super-personalised, proactive and coordinated services must be developed to monitor the clinical evolution of complications. In traditional healthcare systems, this new approach places a growing economic and organizational burden that may prove unsustainable. By adequately enhancing digital technologies and reorganizing services, it is possible to manage timely healthcare interventions and provide constant, long-lasting support for lifestyle management and drug therapy, remote monitoring, patient education, and personalized care in a much more effective and economical way.

Globally, women continue to suffer the negative effects on their health of the persistent delay in the use of gender medicine, i.e. the biomedical concept that clinical strategies and therapeutic solutions can be optimised for women’s health when the biological differences between women and men are taken into account. In addition, the possibilities for prevention and treatment of typical female health conditions need to be enhanced: complications of pregnancy and childbirth, cervical and breast cancer, hormonal disorders, osteoporosis.

Technological innovations have improved women’s health in recent decades, but the benefits remain unevenly distributed. The development of technologies dedicated to women, or “femtech”, is growing rapidly, but technology alone cannot solve the root causes of unmet health needs. Transformative progress for women’s health worldwide also requires appropriate integrated and multidisciplinary solutions that address systemic inequalities.