Metaverse in relation to the healthcare industry:
Metaverse is touted to have a significant and comprehensive impact on healthcare. At the very basic level, Metaverse will facilitate research and development proficiencies pertaining to the drug manufacturing processes, bring about technological advancements in the field of mental health, aid healthcare facilities by tackling the problem of geographical limitations, promote virtual wellness, and fitness and much more. In healthcare, metaverse can be defined as the convergence of three major technological trends which are discussed as below:
1. Artificial intelligence- Artificial intelligence (AI) in metaverse would create a more scalable and accurate virtual world. Healthcare industry can utilize artificial intelligence to sweep and process on real time basis, the huge measure of information delivered consistently by the exercises of clients in the organization's metaverse, and make other use cases conceivable. This will help in keeping it all intact. With the application of artificial intelligence in metaverse, it will become accessible to interface in the metaverse openly. Artificial intelligence can separate normal dialects such as English, changing them into a machine-decipherable configuration. An examination is then played out, a result (or reaction) is created which is then changed over once more into English and sent over to the client.
Data Bridge Market Research analyses that the artificial intelligence in healthcare market is expected to undergo a CAGR of 51.37% during the forecast period of 2022-2029. This indicates that the market value of USD 6.35 billion in 2021 would rocket up to USD 175.22 billion by 2029. "Patients" dominates the end-user segment of the artificial intelligence in healthcare market owing to the increasing product launches, availability of the larger patient pool, and advancements in healthcare technologies.
To know more about the study, visit: https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-artificial-intelligence-in-healthcare-market
2. Augmented reality- Augmented reality is a technology that provides an enhanced and superimposed version of the real and physical world. The biggest and one of the most successful examples of this is the Pokémon Go game released in 2016. Augmented reality is one of the most important component of metaverse as facilitates imitation of real world experiences. Augmented reality (AR) includes overlaying visual, hear-able, or other tangible data in the world to improve one's insight. Healthcare organizations can utilize augmented reality to promote services and products, set off effective marketing and awareness campaigns, and collect special client information.
3. Virtual reality- There is a thin line of difference between augmented reality and virtual reality. Augmented reality is based on real world setting, however, virtual reality is a complete immersive experience that replaces the real world with the virtual world. The immersion of virtual reality and metaverse is definitive to evolve in the future owing to the fact that metaverse is just somewhere between stage 1 and stage 2 of the development. Virtual reality is presumably the term that individuals are the most acquainted with. Virtual reality refers to a 3D and PC produced virtual world either to duplicate a real life physical world or a fictional universe, which is made by a mix of practical sounds, pictures and different sensations through gadgets like virtual reality headsets/protective caps, gloves and body locators equipped with sensors. An individual can inundate and communicate inside that this virtual world without any inconvenience. It anyway doesn't represent the user's real physical world, so it is prescribed for the user to make use of virtual reality technology in an open geographical location to abstain from inadvertently hurting themselves or the others by coming in contact with things present in the real world.
In combination with the above three mentioned technologies along with other technologies such as mixed reality, blockchain technology and social media, metaverse will carve the way for the emergence of new channels for drug delivery and treatment, improve the outcome of patients pertaining to health care and significantly lower the costs of healthcare treatments. Combining these technological innovations in internet-based conditions - the metaverse - implies medical care experts will want to convey more patient-centric treatment packages, unhindered by the current medical services framework. Quick data sharing and exchanging among physician/ experts/ doctors/ clinicians would help to understand the hidden reasons for medical affliction. Checking of patient movement in the metaverse implies that consistence could all the more effectively be followed, which would also help diagnose and treat sickness/ diseases/ illness/ disorders/ medical conditions.
How will metaverse impact the healthcare industry?
Digital health solutions are on the cusp of rapid market value growth due to the unprecedented growth of emerging technologies such as virtual and augmented reality. Metaverse will all the more prove to be a boon for the market. It has been well known to everyone's knowledge for some time that the healthcare framework is not sustainable in the long run owing to the with the tension surrounding around long haul, ongoing rate of chronic and acute infections, increasing medical costs and expenses, ever-rising geriatric population base globally, dearth of skilled medical practitioners and professionals, and lack of resources and assets. Hence, it is important to discover and apply models that move medical care from the clinic to the living room. Digital health is a major determinant in this regard, revolutionizing the healthcare industry and turning into a basic empowering agent of progress in biotechnology areas. The COVID-19 pandemic too was a driving force for the innovators to track down approaches to manage patients to be overseen out of medical clinics and from a distance. The rising proliferation of smartphones and more prominent wearable gadgets have also been market growth determining agents. Below is how metaverse will bring about a change in the healthcare industry and promote digital health solutions:
Education
Together, augmented reality and virtual reality as components of metaverse will bring about a large scale technological transformation in the way medical education and training are provided. Augmented reality would enable to students to undertake hands on learning by using medical instruments, performing medical and surgical procedures and allowing the students to visualize and practice new medical technologies. On the other hand, virtual reality would present the students to a virtual world of surgical theatres and rooms. The virtual reality world allows medical students and enthusiasts to enjoy replicating a real world environment and literally enter the human body. By using these techniques and technologies, users could enjoy a complete game like setting. Moreover, celebrity coaches could be appointed for a more interesting and entertaining learning.
The role of metaverse application in clinical applications and in the field of education is to produce an augmented reality space to analyze the life systems of a human body in a research center setting. This innovation holds open doors for establishing and setting up numerous new educational settings. This new educational setting offers space for cooperation and communication, arrangements for new experiences, opportunity to share and make, and high inundation. Challenges recommended are security impingement, maladaptation to the students in the outside and real world, and commission of wrongdoings. Virtual reality is being utilized to train specialists and clinical suppliers by invigorating real techniques and showing cell level information of the human life systems.
Presently, augmented reality has been accepted in the medical school educational programs and has shown a positive result to medication. For example, Novarad Corp., a clinical imaging programming organization, declared the launch of its augmented reality programming for advanced education. Similarly, a blend of these two technologies (augmented reality and virtual reality) as metaverse will expand by and large clinical education and training in the future. Clinical instructors can utilize this innovation to assist students with tackling issues, perform projects, fabricate imagination, and make a learning space for all the students.
Telemedicine
The pandemic phase brought in a disaster for the 2D healthcare systems and solutions. This was because of the restrictions and stringencies imposed on the movement of individuals. This situation for 2D healthcare systems was further worsened owing to the implementation of lockdown protocol globally. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, only 43% of the entire healthcare facilities were successful in delivering remote therapy and treatment to the patients. But COVID-19 has brought in a positive impact in the field of telemedicine. The market of 43% has risen to 95% as of now. And with metaverse, telemedicine will further undergo proliferation at a global level.
Therapy is one area where metaverse in the healthcare industry can largely shine and bring out some strong results. Virtual reality and augmented reality can play a crucial role for patients who tend to develop anxiety. This would help to create a safe environment for both the patient and the healthcare provider which would facilitate controlling and monitoring the situation. For example, gameChange, an augmented reality framework created by Dr. Daniel Freeman and his partners is utilizing virtual reality to treat psychosis utilizing a type of clinical innovation known as computerized therapeutics (DTx).
A scene from the gameChange VR system: Simulation of a doctor's waiting area
Source: gameCHange
Metaverse will enhance telemedicine visits with a virtual office, where patients and doctors can meet in a 3D facility or some other setup. This is projected to develop the client experience for teleconsultation benefits further essentially. Utilizing virtual reality, the metaverse in medical services can empower powerful inundation by giving an impressively higher feeling of "being there" than other virtual environmental conditions such as sites, informing applications, or online entertainment. Through such discussions, patients will as of now not be confined to being treated by specific unambiguous experts attributable to their physical and geographical area.
This indicates that if the patient is located in India and seeks the healthcare guidance and treatment by the specialist situated in New York, he or she can easily do so just by using the headsets. Scans and tests can be conducted at one location and the information or data can be transferred to another healthcare facility from anywhere to anyplace around the world. Metaverse has done nothing but enhanced the accessibility to telehealth solutions by promoting and providing a better doctor patient interaction interface/ platform. With the rising digitization, especially improving rate of digitization in the developing economies, the 2D healthcare systems are rapidly evolving into 3D and virtual healthcare systems and solutions.
The rising popularity of digital health solutions and the video telemedicine industry is gaining worldwide attraction. Data Bridge Market Research has readily grabbed this opportunity to understand the market trends and developments. Data Bridge Market Research analyses that the video telemedicine market will exhibit a CAGR of around 12.20% for the forecast period of 2021-2028. The video telemedicine market is segmented on the basis of communication technology, application, deployment, component and end users. North America dominates the video telemedicine market due to its sophisticated healthcare infrastructure. Asia-Pacific on the other hand is projected to undergo the highest growth rate during the forecast period owing to the favorable initiatives by the government and increased focus on reducing healthcare expenditure.
To know more about the study, visit: https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-video-telemedicine-market
Surgical Operations
Currently, healthcare facilities all around the world are extensively using emerging technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. The aim behind the application of these technologies is to augment the patient outcomes. Undertaking minimally invasive surgical procedures has become to smooth with the help of these technologies. These technologies are used in the universities and educational institutions as well to facilitate the students with 3D view of the patient's body and train them to undertake medical surgical procedures. However, these technologies bring along their own set of technical challenges such as:
- Developing actual and physical objects and careful connection points inside a PC created space
- Developing surgical interfaces inside a PC created space
- Addressing communications among medical items
- Handling signals for confounded occasions during medical procedures
- Mobile virtual reality systems offer only pocket size immersion
Virtual reality frameworks are restricted to explicit clinical settings. Resolution of gadgets and PC determinations are restricting aspects for healthcare institutions. These are some other challenges impacting the market. However, these challenges can be overhauled and tackled with the help of metaverse in the healthcare industry. This is possible as metaverse offers an interface and a virtual space to undertake interactions between the patients, students and doctors. This makes it easier to provide healthcare assistance to the patients and impart medical training in the aspiring students.
Though, robotically assisted medical surgeries have already brought in a revolution in the healthcare industry, augmented reality in combination with virtual reality and artificial intelligence (together forming the components of metaverse) will bring about a change in how complicated surgeries are being carried out. Metaverse will provide a greater degree of precision and accuracy, converting into greater success rate by treating complicated surgeries such as removing cancerous or tumor cells and performing spinal related surgeries.
Digital Twins
Numerous huge medical technological organizations, such as Siemens Healthineers and GE Healthcare, focus on adopting digital twins technology. To accomplish their objective, these organizations will require basic resources, including gigantic measures of patient information. The digital twin is a technology of virtual representation of objects from the real world and real time with an aim to learn more about it, analyze it, study it and make decisions accordingly. Using metaverse, digital twins can be anything from medical devices to the patients themselves. Metaverse will bring efficiency and effectiveness in the digital twin’s technology by:
- Recognizing individual factors involving risk
- Facilitating more precise and rapid diagnosis
- Predicting responses to the interventions
- Making possible faster, safer and fewer clinical trials
- Optimizing the efficiency of the healthcare facilities
Digital twins in the future, with the help of metaverse is projected to be used as "test dummy technology" for the patients, researchers, medical professionals, scientists and drug developers. This indicates that the combination of metaverse and digital twins will be used to understand and predict how will the patient recover from a surgery, certain illness, or how would he or she react to medicines. This will in turn improve the mapping and comprehending processes as the individual genetics improves.
This combination would further cut down the experiments on the animals by virtually testing the medicine. It would further suggest the best possible treatment for the individual suffering from one or the other medical condition, monitor the patient's health and look for signs of side effects to the medications. In any case, making an interpretation of digital twins worth into genuine effect lies in large scale application and execution: making the innovation broadly open in the clinical daily schedule, enhancing key clinical cycles utilizing advanced reenactments, and working on providing improved medical assistance.
Fitness, wellness and quality of life
Gamification will play a crucial role in in this regard. Gamification will offer newer and innovative ways for both patients and healthcare providers to connect together. Metaverse will increase the proliferation of health and fitness applications. Currently, augmented reality and virtual reality are used to deliver health and fitness workouts with the help of virtual instructors. As discussed above, celebrity coaches can be used here as well. The major aim behind the application of gamification is to bring together and connect the healthcare providers and the patients. Platform such as Roblox have been a stepping stone in this regard. With the accessibility of such platforms, more and more users (patients and healthcare providers) are connecting, collaborating and interacting every day. With metaverse, users can create and have fun on these platforms.
With metaverse, it would be entirely possible to deliver smarter workouts to the users via virtual instructors and guidance providers. On the other hand, virtual reality can improve the standard of life of a patient. In a recent study, it was discovered that virtual reality has proven effects in improving the quality of life of individuals suffering from dementia. After careful monitoring of the required number of sessions with the dementia patients, it was chalked out that the patients showed positive signs pertaining to the memory retrieval and memory retention. This in turn, boosted up the mood of the dementia patients. Not just that, virtual reality influenced the mental stimulation in the dementia patients towards maintaining a positive lifestyle.
With the rising technological advancements and increasing rate of globalization, it is observed that the individuals are more driven towards supplementing their daily routine with health and fitness activities. Virtual reality based exercises are increasingly gaining popularity in the developing economies as well. People have discovered virtual reality to be all the more interactive, engaging and entertaining. This has largely and positively impacted those of shy and timid nature. Introverts have achieved and enjoyed the maximum benefits out of this technology. With metaverse ahead of people, virtual reality and augmented reality will emerge as the therapists for individuals. This is because metaverse has a greater potential and horizon than traditional forms of fitness or traditional ways of maintaining health and fitness. Clinical and medical schools are starting to integrate augmented reality into the educational program to furnish students with significant learning potential. With the introduction of augmented reality into the syllabus, medical programs can create patient encounters, permitting the medical students to picture and practice their learnings during training and practical practice.
COVID-19 resulted in rise in demand for fitness equipment to be used at homes. Growing awareness about maintaining health and fitness in this pandemic resulted in large scale demand for fitness equipment. Data Bridge Market Research conducted a detailed study on the fitness equipment market. The fitness equipment market is segmented on the basis of equipment, distribution channel and end-use. On the basis of equipment, fitness equipment market is segmented into cardiovascular, strength training, and others. Cardiovascular is further segmented into elliptical machines, treadmills, exercise bikes, climbers, and others. Strength training is segmented into weight lifting equipment, weights, barbells and ladders, extension machines, power racks, etc. The others are sub-segmented into activity monitors and body analyzers. On the basis of distribution channel, fitness equipment market is segmented into direct and indirect. The indirect distribution channel is further sub-segmented into hypermarkets/supermarkets, specialty stores/sports chain outlets, multi-brand stores, discount stores, independent departmental stores, sports stores and online retailers. On the basis of end use, the fitness equipment market is segmented into home care, health club, offices and others.
To know more about the study, visit: https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/fitness-equipment-market
Blockchain
Blockchain is an important component of the metaverse and will bring about a revolution in the healthcare industry. Many big entrepreneurs and researchers agree to the fact that it takes into account decentralized networks controlled by means of savvy contracts, as well as a record of computerized "proprietorship" of environment or even things in the modern digital world. The administration and security of exceptionally important healthcare related data and information is blockchain's most noticeable use case in the healthcare industry.
As of now, information is moved or exchanged between many organizations much of the time in a wasteful, ineffective, inefficient, and hazy way. Data providers well agree that there are discrepancies in the manner the crucial healthcare information is shared and exchanged. Since health records are commonly stored and centralized using a framework of computers, the health data is becomes highly vulnerable to false and malware practices. Data theft is one of the most common unethical practices that exists in this digital age. All of this implies that blockchain, as a component of metaverse, will allow the storage of data and other crucial information in a very centralized and secure manner offering shield against data thefts and other kinds of unethical practices.
To many, blockchain is a technology concerned with cryptocurrencies. However, blockchain is a technological database that facilitates a framework for healthcare data storage and transmission in a secured way that the data owner himself can only manipulate. Blockchain additionally can possibly make regulatory, care conveyance, and installment/ payment processes "transparent". It decreases misrepresentation and the regulatory burden on the data owner, both the healthcare provider and the insurer. Not just that, it would make things secured for the insured and the payment maker. Blockchain innovation wipes out the tedious and inefficient processes that are at present in the traditional systems of data or information storage. The auditability, transparency, stability, and encryption of blockchain facilitate more productive, powerful, secure, and invariable processes involving management of credentials. Essentially, blockchain innovation permits the client or patient full independence and ownership over their information.
Challenges ahead of metaverse in healthcare and patient management:
With the positives, metaverse brings along a range of challenges for the healthcare industry. Some of the major industrial challenges are discussed as below:
1. High technological cost- It is no surprise that there is a requirement for huge capital investment for successful and effective implementation of metaverse by the healthcare industry. In other words, to enjoy the benefits of metaverse, there is a need for upgradation of technological infrastructure especially in the developing economies. This would require massive spending on the infrastructure. From uninterrupted high speed (5G) internet connection to requirement for high tech hardware such as wearables, everything involves high budget spending.
2. Interoperability issues- Interoperability is a critical part of the modern medical care or healthcare world - and one of the most difficult with regards to arising technologies. Adding one more component such as the metaverse can affect which medical devices are not difficult to port among various networks, platforms and organizations. Until and unless the whole healthcare and medical services industry rapidly evolves information storage and communication standards, the reception of the metaverse will be slow and may even prompt a few adverse outcomes.
3. Security and privacy concerns- Healthcare industry is often targeted with cyber threats by the cybercriminals to misuse and manipulate the information to their advantages. Moreover, with the rising volume of patients, there is a subsequent rise in the level of patient data. Though the initial results of metaverse applications prove to be promising, the mass and large scale results of metaverse are yet to be seen.
Conclusion
Like two sides to a coin, metaverse brings along both opportunities and challenges. There are certainly greater opportunities despite of the risks involved. The ability to influence the proficient young populace to assume command over their medical services furthermore, be boosted to learn, improve wellbeing, and teach their friends in a protected and secure social virtual setting is a strong thought. Experimenters are altering healthcare into vivid miniature modules that can be instructed online to anybody, anywhere and anytime. The accuracy opportunities for clinicians, teaming up around the world and utilizing augmented and virtual reality to help them, opens prospects to overcome the challenge of dearth of skilled medical professionals in a given geographical area. The capacity for the local area, patients, and specialists to be compensated for their endeavors to further develop health opens an entirely different economy and opportunities in the future. It is feasible to make a manageable and reasonable paradigm in medical care, and healthcare experts need to be participate in the process. The time has come to incline in and see exactly what conceivable outcomes are brought in by metaverse.
Virtual reality and augmented reality as components of metaverse would help the students in medical educational and training purposes. Virtual reality and augmented reality would facilitate a replica of the real world environment and provide real-world physical medical devices for training and practical purposes. In this regards, Data Bridge Market Research conducted an in depth study on the global spinal implants and surgical devices market. Data Bridge Market Research analyses the market to account for USD 16.20 billion by 2028 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.50% in the forecast period. However, there lay certain challenges and restraints for the market. The dearth of skilled personnel and unfavorable reimbursement scenario will emerge as the major restraints and challenge the growth of the spinal implants and surgical devices market. Also, high cost of the procedure can restrict the growth of the spinal implants and surgical devices market.
To know more about the study, visit: https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-spinal-implants-surgical-devices-market
