Quantum Machine Learning for Digital Health? A Systematic Review

With the digitization of health data, the growth of electronic health and medical records lowers barriers for using algorithmic techniques for data analysis. While classical machine learning techniques for health data approach commercialization, there is not yet clear evidence whether quantum machine learning (QML) will provide any empirical advantage for digital health data processing. In this systematic literature review we assess whether QML algorithms have the potential to outperform existing classical methods in efficacy or efficiency. We include digital electronic health/medical records (EH/MRs) and data considered to be a reasonable proxy to EH/MRs. Eligible QML algorithms must be designed for quantum computing hardware, as opposed to quantum-inspired techniques. PubMed, Embase, IEEE, Scopus and arXiv yielded 4915 studies between 2015 to 10 June 2024. After screening 169 eligible studies, most studies contained widespread technical misconceptions about QML and we excluded 123 studies for insufficient rigor in analysis. Of the remaining 46 studies, only 16 studies consider realistic QML operating conditions, either by testing algorithms on quantum hardware, or using noisy quantum circuits when assessing QML algorithms. We find QML applications in digital health focus primarily on clinical decision support rather than health service delivery or public health. Nearly all QML models are linear quantum models, and therefore represent a subset of general quantum algorithms. Meanwhile, novel data-encoding strategies do not address scalability issues, except in regimes requiring restrictive assumptions about quantum hardware, rendering these protocols inefficient for the general encoding of large health datasets. By establishing the current state of evidence for QML-based health applications, we pave the way for meaningful dialogue about QML use-case discovery in digital health.