Table of Contents

• What is Metaverse?

• Why Might The Metaverse be The New Future?

• Potential Application of Metaverse for Healthcare

• Take-Home Points

• FAQ on Metaverse is Revolutionizing Healthcare

Introduction 

What is healthcare? Healthcare is the prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well-being through the services offered by the medical, nursing, and allied health professions. Healthcare is not at all something that can be delivered, purchased, or sold, but rather a complex ecosystem with several moving pieces that are only linked by the patients' presence. Each patient has unique needs, thus their landscape will be tailored to those needs and vary over time. Healthcare is one of the most important factors in ensuring the general, physical, social, and mental well-being of the entire human population worldwide. 

Any healthcare system's major goal is to focus its resources on initiatives that advance, preserve, restore, and enhance healthcare services. It also makes a significant contribution to the efficient growth of an economy and industrialization. This industry has thus experienced tremendous expansion and revolution while being heavily exposed to technological innovation in order to improve the experience of contact between carers, patients, and related stakeholders. The introduction of digital health services employing internet and digital tools has significantly changed how patients and doctors interact, with changes being visible thanks to technologies like blockchain, augmented reality, and virtual reality.

The rapid progress in digitalization and automation have led to an accelerated growth in healthcare, generating novel models that are creating new channels for rendering treatment with reduced cost. A decentralized and reliable online 3D virtual environment known as the "metaverse" is what is thought to be the Internet of the future and has several applications in the field of medicine. The Metaverse is an emerging technology in the digital space which has huge potential in healthcare, enabling realistic experiences to the patients as well as the medical practitioners. 

What is Metaverse? 

Major structural changes in the healthcare industry have been brought about by the post-pandemic era. For instance, current consumers have been actively participating in healthcare-related decision-making, which has led to their enthusiastic acceptance of virtual healthcare systems and related digital advancements. There are still significant problems, but how they are resolved will determine how the healthcare sector develops in the future. In order to deliver optimal customer satisfaction, enable tracking and monitoring of health state, and enhance adherence to drugs, it has become necessary to use innovative digital tools and services. 

One such major digital advancement that the field of medicine might see in future is the introduction and implementation of Metaverse in the healthcare industry.  The medical Internet of Things made possible by AR and VR headsets is referred to as the "metaverse" in medicine. The metaverse is developing and has great promise in healthcare by fusing technologies like AI, VR, AR, IoMD, Web 3.0, intelligent cloud, edge, and quantum computing with robots to give healthcare new directions. Healthcare providers are now promoting the use of self-service applications for education and social support as well as virtual care, remote monitoring, digital diagnostics and decision support systems, at-home prescription delivery systems, and systems for digital diagnostics and decision support. 

Why Might The Metaverse be The New Future?

The healthcare system in the Metaverse offers interactive, immersive, and enjoyable health-care experiences that are tailored to the needs of specific individuals. Metaverse utilizes artificial intelligence, cloud computing, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) technologies, this digital transformation will have a tremendous impact on the healthcare ecosystem by improving their working capabilities, access to services, and patient-clinician experience. The employment of these technologies exposes people to novel, much less expensive therapy delivery methods, improving patient outcomes. 

The Metaverse uses the internet to create a virtual world experience where human emotions and movements are recreated. It involves both the actual world and the virtual world's entire social and economic systems. Healthcare professionals can plan and diagnose illnesses more effectively with the use of metaverse technologies. 

The neurosurgeons at the Johns Hopkins Hospital performed a procedure in 2020 while wearing an Augmedics augmented reality headset. The technique required fusing six vertebrae in the patient's spine using a see-through eye display that projected images of the patient's anatomy similar to those seen with X-ray vision, to relieve the patient from constant back pain. Through the use of headsets and the Metaverse environment, better preoperative surgery planning is made possible by converting CT images into 3D reconstructions. Additionally, this enables surgeons to precisely inspect, isolate, and modify anatomical parts in order to carry out crucial surgery. 

Apart from this, metaverse tools offer enhanced prescription therapies. Due to the current pandemic, there is a huge demand for remote healthcare services. The Metaverse has potential to offer a better user experience than traditional videoconferencing -based telemedicine solutions. The integration of the patient's vitals, CT scans, health records, and genetic test results to create a digital simulation of the patient's anatomy and physiology to monitor and generate insights on their health condition will keep the consumers informed and engaged about their treatment in the Metaverse. Patients can interact with physicians, researchers, nutritionists, and other stakeholders for individualized care and treatment by visualizing their health information on a virtual dashboard. 

Through the use of AR technology, the respondents would be able to communicate directly with off-site clinicians and broadcast live emergency situations to them in order to deliver quick and effective on-the-spot care. Medical education and training could be revolutionised by the metaverse. Instead of spreading theoretical knowledge, the usage of AR creates a favorable setting for explaining actual techniques. Reputable universities are gradually embracing the use of VR, AR, mixed reality (MR), and AI to train medical professionals by simulating intricate real-time procedures and disseminating information on the cellular level specifics of human anatomy.

Potential Application of Metaverse for Healthcare

When compared to the "handicraft workshop model," in which the diagnosis and treatment differ from doctor to doctor and hospital to hospital, the metaverse in medicine considerably aids in providing complete healthcare. Decisions in a comprehensive healthcare scenario will be based on the expert's recommendations and the outcomes of the numerous Metaverse supporting technologies. Numerous medical uses for the Metaverse exist, including study, physical examination, diagnosis, and insurance. Virtual physiotherapy, virtual biopsy, virtual counselling, and virtual alarm response are a few of the Metaverse's possible applications that could take off in the near future.

Medical diagnosis:

The process of identifying a patient's medical condition based on their symptoms is known as medical diagnosis. By utilizing a variety of cutting-edge technologies, including as extended digital twins, blockchain, 5G, and AR and VR enabled MIoT models, the use of the Metaverse in healthcare substantially aids in the effective diagnosis of a patient's medical issues. Holographic construction, emulation, real-world interaction, and integration are all possible with MIoT accessed through AR/VR glasses, which can help to simplify the challenging issues encountered in the healthcare industry. Additionally, the incorporation of blockchain technology into Metaverse will make it possible to store, exchange, and programme health-based digital assets across numerous platforms, enabling the use of the data for more accurate and wiser diagnoses of various medical ailments.

Patient monitoring:

The healthcare industry will greatly benefit from the Metaverse thanks to the convergence of telepresence, digital twinning, and blockchain, particularly in terms of patient monitoring. Remote medical care is offered through telemedicine, often known as telepresence in medicine. A digital twin is a virtual, digital representation made from the real-world data of a thing, system, or person that aids in understanding its actual counterpart. Medical data is among the most delicate and significant, thus employing blockchain technologies helps in securely storing and transferring it so that it cannot be altered and is not put at danger. If all three of these elements are engineered to function well together, patient monitoring can be offered in an efficient manner. By combining these technologies into one, the Metaverse offers a solution.

Medical education :

A significant development in medical education is the Metaverse. In the sphere of medical education, the Metaverse's pioneers include IoT, blockchain, AI, AR, and VR. A digital virtual environment that transcends the boundaries of the physical world is created by the Metaverse using AI and blockchain. With the aid of these tools, medical students are now able to concentrate, participate in discussions, communicate closely, and engage in activities more enjoyable even in hectic clinical settings. In the traditional teaching methods, the instructor takes the class of medical students to a patient and then presents and discusses the relevant medical information with the group of students. 

Surgeries:

A crucial piece of medical technology, particularly in surgery, is the metaverse. The use of equipment like VR headsets and haptic gloves by surgeons to simulate genuine surgical procedures is now increasing readiness and efficiency in the operating room. Surgery can be assisted by augmented reality more easily by granting surgeons easy access to data. Using augmented reality, surgeons can quickly  access digital representations of the patient's body and 3D mapping allows for hands-free access to patient information. Professors and lecturers might instruct difficult surgical procedures in three dimensions in  the Metaverse.

Take-Home Points

If metaverse technology is combined with genuine innovation to suit people's perceptions and expectations, the delivery of healthcare will soon undergo a revolution. Metaverse is being used more and more in a variety of healthcare disciplines. The use of it has expanded to include things like medical procedures and healthcare services. The fundamental change in the character and quality of imaging has several potential uses for the metaverse in medical imagery.

References

• Metaverse is revolutionizing healthcare: are you  ready for change?

• Rise of metaverse in healthcare

• How metaverse can transform the healthcare industry