Hope you are keeping well and let’s celebrate further one step close to normality. I have been doing some work in this area and thought would be good to share what I have learned about how metaverse will impact healthcare or shall we call it Meta Health?

We hear all the time that the health care system is unsustainable, with the pressure of long-term, chronic disease, rising costs, aging populations, insufficient health workforce, and limited resources. It is necessary to find models that move health care from the hospital to the living room. Digital Health is revolutionizing care directly and becoming a critical enabler of change in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors.

Earlier in 2021, researchers predicted three significant shifts in the global health landscape, the move of the big tech companies into healthcare, the monetization of consumer data, the creation of health data marketplaces, and the growth of Asia as a leader in digital health. We are now moving fast to a Metaverse age. The Metaverse is a combination of DeFi, NFTs, decentralized governance, decentralized cloud services, and self-sovereign identity and can enable the exchange of physical, economic, and content assets.

One of the boldest to date has been the announcement by the city of Seoul, Korea, which plans to create a Metaverse for its municipal administration, including economic, cultural, tourism, educational and civic service. Let’s explore how the Metaverse may be used in the future to change, enhance, and possibly transform health care in key five areas: collaborative working, education, clinical care, wellness, and monetization.

Collaborative working

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed social interactions. Social distancing policies, lockdowns, and mandatory quarantines have accelerated the technological mediation of communication on an unprecedented scale. Many physical activities such as office work, education, and conferences have moved to the online space through social media apps, the Metaverse, or mobile phones.

In the Metaverse, 3D avatars of health workers will have space to collaborate with tools such as digital whiteboards, and they will be able to meet face-to-face without any complex conferencing equipment. An example that a health care application could include creating a digital copy of a hospital process, such as in-patient flow, then applying advanced analytics and running millions of potential scenarios to identify the root cause and test different interventions before using them. The Metaverse can also encourage and enable collaboration.

Another example, in veterinary science, using digital twins, and digital avatars or Metaverse offers a timely way of exploring the subtle nuances of animal behavior and cognition in enhancing farm animal welfare.

Education & Training

The use of AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) will change medical education and training as well as processes and procedures. VR allows students to literally enter the human body, providing a comprehensive view and allowing the replication of actual procedures. AR is also being introduced to give students hands-on learning, such as simulating patient and surgical encounters, allowing medical students to visualize and practice new techniques. Even more immersive experiences could be recreated from real surgery where students can experience the surgery as if they were the surgeon themselves. Education will be transformed into an immersive experience where learning is fun, success is rewarded and data analytics target precision learning.

Clinical Care

There is immense scope for the Metaverse to be used in clinical care. Using immersive experiences recreated from surgery, real-time guidance can be provided in the surgeon’s field of view. AR will allow access to the information within the sterile field of the operating room, which will improve surgical precision and flexibility. The Metaverse will allow simultaneous education, training, and planning as well as collaborative medical procedures. Combined with AI, this can empower clinical decision-making and ensure more precise interventions which are tailored to each individual patient. An example is Veyond Metaverse (https://www.veyondMetaverse.com) which is creating a future Healthcare Metaverse ecosystem. It aims to improve education, and training through a collaborative platform for simultaneous education, training, and planning as well as collaborative medical procedures.

Initially, the Metaverse will be used for surgical simulations, diagnostic imaging, patient care management, rehabilitation, and health management. For patients, these technologies can expedite education about conditions or treatment plans. In a clinical setting, AR and VR can help care teams at the point of care. When combined with radiology, AR can provide clinicians with the ability to project medical images, such as CT scans, directly onto the patient and in alignment with the patient’s body, even as the person moves, to provide clinicians with clearer lines of sight into internal anatomy.

Extended reality headsets are also being used as a way to alter the psychological experiences of users for the treatment of addictions and phobias.

Wellness

Gamification is a new way of connecting healthcare providers and patients, especially in wellness and fitness, where AR can deliver smarter workouts with guidance from virtual instructors. In another new concept, “move-to-earn”, players are incentivized to be active. For example, using data from smartphones and wearables, players can get rewarded for walking, dancing, running a daily run, or just getting up and going about life. Medical schools are beginning to incorporate AR into the curriculum to provide students with valuable hands-on learning opportunities. With AR, programs can simulate patient and surgical encounters, allowing medical students to visualize and practice techniques during training.

Monetization

The monetization of health data will create new economic opportunities. ‘Play to earn’, ‘learn to earn’, and ‘move to earn’ could become a primary income for millions of people. We will witness the consumerization of healthcare. Combining data and blockchain will enable data owners to monetize their data. Self-sovereign identity will enable individuals to monetize their health data in the future and consumer-focused health care driven by data will change the institutional models of the past. Harnessing technology will also give consumers a better ability to proactively manage their own health and wellness and to make better, more informed decisions. New platforms that are also creating ways that people can “learn to earn” can be integrated into healthcare. This may be for wellness, or for community collaboration, or medical education. NFTs will play an important role in value exchange. Interoperability is essential to digital healthcare. Blockchain and token economies will allow both the secure sharing as well as the monetization of data and intellectual value.

Final thoughts, this is a new world that is advancing daily, and our knowledge grows with the innovators who are building these new Metaverses. It is possible to create a sustainable and affordable paradigm in health care, and health leaders need to be part of its creation. It is time to lean in and see just what the possibilities are.