Metaverse & Healthcare

Implementation of technologies like blockchain in healthcare, which will ensure higher security and data integrity.

COVID-19 changed our world. It also accelerated the adoption of digital health bringing a technology-driven paradigm shift in healthcare. Digital healthcare has been rapidly scaling with new applications and new technologies.

Now, the health industry is set to get a boost using “blockchain” and Web3 technologies. Web3 will transform our 2D Internet experiences of today, into real immersive spaces (using AR and VR).

The result of this transformation is the ‘Metaverse’. The Metaverse is a virtual three-dimensional (3D) space where fully immersed 3D replicas of people are possible using

the next version of the Internet-based on technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR) and flowing on the new high speed mobile 5G networks

One way to understand this is through Ready Player One, a 2018 Sci-fi film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is set in 2045 where much of humanity uses VR simulation to escape the real world. So, people live unhealthy and lazy life in the real world. But they lead an alternative healthy life in the metaverse.

This is happening in the Web2 social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc) world. Everyone leads confident and happy lives. The reality could be diametrically opposite though.

Metaverse promises to combine the two worlds. It will be a combination of Preventive health + gaming + metaverse in 3D. The underlying technology for Metaverse is Blockchain which offers better security, privacy, and accessibility to patients due to its inherent nature. Blockchain can be applied to the medical space in a variety of ways, to reduce costs and offer better access to healthcare.

Virtual reality (VR), Augmented reality (AR) and Mixed reality are already being used for medical training and surgical procedures. Routine consultations that don’t require a physical examination (those that can be carried out visually) will move to the Metaverse.

Gamification and personalization will be key in the health metaverse to connect and bring healthcare providers and consumers together.

In this alternate digital reality world, you can create your own digital avatar on your headset and meet your doctor in an avatar form. AR glasses are a long-awaited metaverse tool. Once connected to the internet, virtual images can be superimposed physically. It may not be long before we all wear AR devices and go about our day-to-day life.

Metaverse Healthcare box11

You can describe your symptoms, possibly in conjunction with uploaded health data, and receive an evaluation — all from the home. If you want to review the session later, they could record it for playback on command. Payments can be done on using the blockchain platforms and innovative new payment models.

Data will be at the core of these connected networks. While sharing data, it would be the implementation of technologies like blockchain in healthcare, that will ensure higher security and data integrity.

Blockchain will enable accurate data sharing between healthcare providers, which simply means accuracy in diagnosis, and an increase in treatment effectiveness.

In the healthcare metaverse, healthcare professionals will be able to deliver more collaborative treatment programs, not hindered by the current siloed nature of the existing healthcare system. It will also benefit in terms of swift information sharing between doctors and clinicians and that means that underlying causes of ill health could more quickly be established. Monitoring of patient activity in the metaverse means factors such as compliance could be tracked more easily, which would further assist with diagnosing and treating illness.

Gamification and personalization will be key in the health metaverse to connect and bring healthcare providers and consumers together. Delivering unique user experiences through fitness gamification and healthcare rewards will have an advantage in the health metaverse universe.

People who have more control and ownership of their health data will be able to use that data to power their NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) and also using this tokenization people can exchange values.

Digital health metaverse startups are also setting a new parallel course by creating digital twins: which are replicas of bodies, organs, patient populations, etc. in the virtual world. They are used for understanding and extracting insights for healthcare decisions. Digital twins are modeled on real entities and remain connected to real-world sources of health information, primarily the patient. According to Deloitte in its 2022 report on TMT predictions: “5G is believed to become the fastest-adopted mobile technology due to its diverse applications, such as high-speed gaming and remote healthcare.”

A report by Ericsson indicates that by 2030 metaverse will be able to enter virtual worlds that appear to be completely real. Another report by Citi indicates that the Metaverse economy is as large as $13T by the year 2030.

All of this will rub off on the health care status in the Indian ecosystem using Blockchain and the Metaverse technologies.

By Vishal Gondal

Vishal Gondal, Founder & CEO, GOQii

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