Read on The Economic Times

The future of the human race is dependent upon Healthcare challenges. In every stage of medical progress, technology is required to aid in the establishment of new systems in various domains of healthcare and wellness. Metaverse and Web 3.0 are two new internet-based tools that make possible a new healthcare challenge.

The phrase “Metaverse” (from Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash) was intended to depict a fictitious virtual reality scenario in which characters could converse and work with computer-generated objects and environments.

Individuals and governments have raised the potential of new horizons in other realities, such as the metaverse, as a result of the changes brought about by the post-pandemic age.

Users can speak with each other and with computer-generated places and items in the Metaverse. All of this has led to the formation of parallel lives that can develop in an ethereal realm, allowing us to cover a wider range of options in domains such as health education that are now limited.

Many have proposed using the Metaverse to enhance the effectiveness and engagement of online health education.

As a means of advancing medicine and pharmacology, it has also been suggested that testing medications and bandages in a more realistic environment be implemented.

The Metaverse has been offered as a solution for a more efficient manner of transferring genes to cells.

There are two primary concerns to pose to experts: how to rethink the healthcare experience, and how the Metaverse may assist in this endeavor.

The application of Metaverse technology in healthcare is just beginning, but the implications are enormous. Regarding medicine in general, the metaverse regularly reimagines medical student education and the doctor-patient interaction.

Technological breakthroughs are transforming medical care. The healthcare industry is undergoing a seismic transition as a result of recent technology advancements.

Using communication networks such as video conferencing, telephones, and internet chat, telemedicine enables medical professionals to treat patients remotely. Historically, metaverse-related practices have been employed. 

Telemedicine provides simple examples of daily cognitive therapy and rehabilitation therapies.

In an effort to prevent getting the pandemic virus, patients are increasingly relying on telemedicine. The number of Telehealth visits in the United States increased by 4000% between February 2020 and March 2020. The broad adoption of telemedicine constitutes a significant change.

New technologies, such as virtual reality-enabled medicines and artificial intelligence-powered chatbots, are altering the medical profession. As the experts used to remark, it is a renaissance where hyper-connectivity, AR/VR, and AI play crucial roles in the design and implementation.

The metaverse is a digital world in which users can participate in lifelike interactions with other users and digital artifacts. Metaverse enables precision medicine and individualized research with the capacity to generate “digital twins” within the virtual environment.

Digital twins represent citizens in digital form. The fact that patients can obtain medical care in the Metaverse opens the possibility of a new manner of delivering health care. With the added benefit of identifying patients in their native habitat, this enables healthcare practitioners to give care in an immersive context.

Already, hospitals and medical providers are preparing the metaverse for the future of telemedicine. The Emirate corporation Aster DM Healthcare has launched the first medical institution in the metaverse as a result of Dubai’s ambition to become the worldwide metaverse centre.

They intend to adopt Web 3.0 in all of their facilities so that remote physicians and patients can have a more engaging and interactive experience. Its primary goal is to build a fully working virtual hospital in the metaverse, giving consumers with an entirely immersive healthcare experience.

The Metaverse promotes global contact between medical professionals, allowing patients to locate doctors in other countries for procedures that cannot be performed locally. After reviewing the patient’s profile, physicians can design a treatment plan. By connecting with them in the Metaverse, doctors can recruit the services of surgeons in other locations during surgical procedures.

Metaverse hospitals have the potential to revolutionize the current healthcare system by cutting costs, expanding access to specialists, and fostering creative expression.

Using telemedicine, physicians may now consult with patients remotely, establish diagnoses, and define treatment plans without ever having to be in the same room.

This has led to considerable changes in healthcare delivery and opened up new opportunities for education and growth.

In addition to healthcare delivery and patient treatment, the metaverse and Web 3.0 offer the potential to safeguard patient data against future threats.

The majority of health information resides in centralized databases administered by healthcare providers, insurance, and government agencies. Unprotected systems and databases make healthcare organizations vulnerable to cyber attacks.

This concentration makes it easy for these organizations to violate patients’ confidence, as seen by incidents involving data breaches and the theft of medical records. 50 health records including 500 or more individuals were submitted to the United States Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in January 2022, according to the HIPAA Journal. A data breach involving over 1.35 million Broward Health patients was discovered in January.

Because Web 2.0 has introduced new security concerns to the healthcare system, healthcare facilities that handle electronic protected health information should implement suitable technological security measures, including data encryption. Therefore, Web 3.0 is a huge advance in boosting healthcare payment and delivery.

In general, Metaverse and Web 3.0 can improve the patient-doctor relationship and save costs associated with administration, legal procedures, and infrastructure.

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