Understanding the impact of the Metaverse in healthcare
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Facebook’s Metaverse, an ambitious project to create a virtual world where people can interact and socialize, has the potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry. The impact goes beyond our wildest dreams. The Metaverse in healthcare has the potential to influence data visualization, transform patient access to care, and much more.
What is the Metaverse?
Before diving into how the Metaverse impacts healthcare, we must understand what it is. The Metaverse is an augmented reality that combines aspects of the digital and physical worlds.
Many tech experts believe it’s the next iteration of the internet – characterized by 3D virtual spaces in which humans experience life in ways that are not possible in the physical world.
Meta, the company whose brands include Facebook and Instagram, is just one entity. It’s not an interconnected space but instead consists of many individual worlds. As technology develops, more companies will participate.
The impact of the Metaverse in healthcare
The Metaverse allows for collecting and analyzing large amounts of data, which may be beneficial for developing new treatments and therapies. It can be instrumental in personalized medicine, where individualized data will lead to more accurate diagnoses and tailored treatments.
Blockchain impact on healthcare data security
The concept of blockchain and the Metaverse in healthcare go hand-in-hand, each with an emphasized value on data transfer, storage, and security. As defined by IBM, blockchain is a shared, immutable ledger that facilitates recording transactions and tracking assets in a business network. An asset can be tangible or intangible. In healthcare, there are plenty of ways to leverage this technology.
Healthcare data stored in virtual environments can be shared securely using blockchain technology. It’s a far cry from the current processes – transferring patient records between organizations with laborious approvals from multiple parties, including the patients. Blockchain technology could control patients’ records and allow them to grant access remotely easily.
For example, using blockchain, patients can share their complete medical histories with their doctors, all compiled and categorized for time-saving reference.
Virtual reality and augmented reality take healthcare to the next level
Virtual reality (VR) technology is the avenue placing people into the Metaverse. Advanced headsets create an immersive experience for patients and providers, allowing them to connect in a virtual environment, which is otherwise limited in the physical world.
Doctors can look more closely at a patient’s reports through high-resolution 3D modeling. Advancements in technology and access to portable healthcare gadgets like heart rate and blood pressure monitors allow patients to sync their data to send results to their providers digitally without leaving the comforts of home. VR can also be used for training, enabling healthcare professionals to practice procedures in a safe, controlled environment before performing them in real-life situations.
The Metaverse in healthcare enables active, safe participation in otherwise hazardous environments
During the recent pandemic, The World Health Organization’s state-of-the-art learning center, The Academy, launched a feature in their training application that uses augmented reality (AR) to show providers how to stay safe when working with COVID-19 patients. The app demonstrates how to use personal protective equipment (PPE) correctly. Students or trainees can direct the figure’s movements during the demonstration instead of simply watching a training video.
Advanced simulations aim to prevent the dangerous side effects of medications
More providers are experimenting with digital twins – virtual models, or simulations, of processes, objects, or systems to predict how patients will react to medications, recover from illness, or rehabilitate after surgery.
For example, ExactCure, a France-based digital healthcare startup, takes patient details such as age, gender, kidney status, genotype, smoker, or any other individual parameter that can influence specific medications and creates a digital twin used for simulations. The goal is to help predict an individual’s response to medications concerning pharmacokinetics (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination of a drug) and pharmacodynamics (examines the relationship between measured drug concentrations in serum, tissues, and body fluid).
The possibilities for solving problems, building creativity, and creating learning spaces in the Metaverse are practically limitless.
How will the Metaverse in healthcare transform the patient experience?
Advancing technologies will also enable patients to interact with other patients and healthcare providers in a virtual community, opening up new opportunities for support and information not possible through traditional methods.
A major benefit of the Metaverse is the advent of VR-based therapies, which allow patients to experience simulations of different environments or scenarios to help them cope with conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder or phobias.
Patients exposed to fear-inducing stimuli inside the Metaverse can face their phobias in a controlled, safe environment versus exposure inside the physical world. This is one of the most effective techniques to treat specific fears, such as driving a car. Driving in a simulator will initially be frightening for people with a fear of driving, but their phobia will typically reduce after some time in the simulated experience.
Potential risks of the Metaverse in healthcare
Despite the potential benefits, there are also concerns about the impact of the Metaverse on healthcare. One concern is the potential for privacy breaches with more sensitive medical information stored in the virtual world. Additionally, there is the risk of addiction to the virtual world, which could negatively impact mental health.
Prepare your organization for the future of healthcare
Overall, the Metaverse in healthcare proves to introduce tremendous benefits. The technology will revolutionize the industry by providing new platforms for simulated training, VR-based therapies, and increased security.
As the influence of the Metaverse in healthcare continues to rise, Inovalon will play an important role in ensuring secure and reliable outcomes across the care continuum. For more insights on what lies ahead, check out this blog on the future of clinical interoperability.
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