HEALTHCARE IN THE METAVERSE: AN INTERCEPTION OF VIRTUAL REALITY AND MEDICINE

HEALTHCARE IN THE METAVERSE: AN INTERCEPTION OF VIRTUAL REALITY AND MEDICINE

By Adedeji Adeniyi

The term “metaverse” was first used by American novelist Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel titled Snow Crash – a cyberpunk classic based on a wildly novel and imaginative concept of how an immersive and alternative virtual reality and the internet-connected universe becomes a reality. The metaverse is an internetbased 3-dimensional (3D) virtual world where people conduct daily activities using avatars representing their “real” or imagined selves.

In a few words, a virtual space became the real world for an alternative life where avatars or digital profiles not only participate in social activities and virtual cultural events but also have an economic life.

Diverse industries, private companies, and organizations, from social communications to fashion, high-tech to business, and art to real estate, are actively investing and creating virtual entities in the metaverse.

The healthcare sector is now starting to deal with the metaverse, and the potentiality of this virtual world for the prevention and treatment of clinical conditions, education and training, and research.

Healthcare is one of the most significant determinants of ensuring the general, physical, social and mental well-being of the entire human population. Any healthcare system’s primary objective is to channel its efforts toward activities that promote, restore, maintain and improve healthcare services. This sector has thus observed rapid growth and revolution being highly exposed to technological evolution to enhance the experience of interaction with caregivers, patients, and related stakeholders. The revolutionizing of digital healthcare has acted as a key enabler of change in the healthcare industry. The initiation of digital health services using digital and internet tools has impacted the interaction between patientphysician at a very large scale wherein changes were visualized due to technologies such as blockchain, augmented reality, and virtual reality. Despite the rapid progress in the healthcare sector, certain issues in this sector remain to be prominent

such as insurmountable pressure of long-term chronic ailments, accelerating costs, aging population, insufficient healthcare workforce, and availability of limited resources. These predominant issues have instigated the need to fetch healthcare services to the living room of individuals. The recent covid-19 pandemic has added enormous pressure to the global healthcare sector and related workforce, infrastructure, and supply chain management. COVID-19 has been the primary reason for accelerating rapid change across the healthcare ecosystem and has compelled the stakeholders to pursue adaptation and innovation of all the technologies used in this sector.

The healthcare system in the Metaverse provides healthcare service experience that is interactive, immersive, and recreationally customized to meet individual patient’s needs. Metaverse technologies can help healthcare professionals in the effective planning and diagnosis of diseases. In 2020, the neurosurgeons at the Johns Hopkins Hospital performed surgery using an augmented reality headset developed by Augmedics. The treatment on June 8, 2020, was the first time an augmented reality technology was used for surgical guidance. The xvision Spine System, created by Chicago-based Augmedics, uses technology to insert a

computer-generated picture in the patient’s line of sight during surgery.

A woman with arthritis-related low back and leg pain underwent spinal decompression and fusion surgery, during which the doctors inserted screws and rods to support her spine. It requires dexterity because the surgeons want to set the screws as tightly as they can while simultaneously protecting the adjacent spinal cord, nerves, and organs.

Traditionally, X-rays and the surgeons’ own eyes have been used to do this. With augmented reality, the system

determines both the position of the tools and displays the trajectory of the procedure to guide the surgeon. To relieve the patient’s chronic back pain, the procedure involved fusing six vertebrae in the patient’s spine utilizing a see-through eye display that showed images of the patient’s anatomy similar to

those seen with X-ray vision. Better preoperative surgical planning is made feasible by transforming CT data into 3D reconstructions using headsets and the Metaverse environment. Furthermore, this makes it possible for surgeons to accurately examine, isolate, and alter anatomical components to perform essential surgery. The patient’s CT scan with 3D navigation data is projected right into their field of view via the headset. That way, the surgeons don’t have to look away from the patient, and it brings a view of the patient’s anatomy in higher focus. It also goes deeper into detail, with a view through the tissues

just next to or deeper beyond what they see. “In essence, it allows almost an ‘x-ray vision’ when we look at the patient,” said Dr. Daniel Sciubba, a professor of neurosurgery who was one of the surgeons performing the procedure. “This makes the surgery so much safer and faster as now we can ‘see’ things beyond what is normally visualized by the average surgeon.” For this first surgery, the CT scan to register the patient’s anatomy, the planning, the actual screw placement, and the followup CT to confirm the perfect position of the screws took about an hour and a half.

The Metaverse tools also

provide amplified prescription treatments. As an example, Ease VR is a prescription-based solution that uses cognitive behavioural therapies to treat patients suffering from back pain using VR headsets and controllers. These tools help in providing deep relaxation, attention-shifting, and interoceptive awareness that cater to the physiological aspects of pain. Plastic surgery is an extremely complex procedure that requires the reconstruction of human body parts. In the case of plastic surgeries, the use of VR in the Metaverse could play an important role wherein the virtual avatar could accurately predict the outcome of a plausible plastic surgery. The Metaverse in the radiology

domain has the potential to unleash advanced capabilities in image visualization enabling radiologists to view dynamic images in more detail resulting in enhanced diagnosis and accurate decision-making. Also, it would provide an opportunity for better training in radiology and the ability to collaboratively work on 3D medical images while being located at different geographic locations. The healthcare metaverse could improve patients’ engagement with the help of high-quality immersive content and features of gamification aiding clinicians to explain complex concepts to patients, provide walkthroughs on procedures they would undergo, and ensure patients accurately take

prescribed medications. The use of digital twins’ solutions in The Metaverse will keep the consumers well informed and engaged in their treatment wherein the patient’s vitals, CT scans, health records, and genetic test results are integrated to develop a digital simulation of the patient’s anatomy and physiology to monitor and generate insights on their health condition. The health data can be visualized by the patients on the virtual dashboard helping them to communicate with clinicians, researchers, nutritionists, and other stakeholders for achieving individual care and treatment. One last aspect to consider is the possibility of creating an avatar that can act as a “virtual nurse” to direct and monitor care and interact with the patient educating him or the staff around him, but also supervise and monitor in real time, the quality/patient safety surveillance, physician activity, and admission and discharge activities. In conclusion, The Metaverse cannot substitute the real world. Physical and eye contact, facial expressions, and gestures are essential elements in the healthcare world. However, the metaverse can be considered a tool to improve the quality of the health care system in terms of intervention and treatment, the education of people all over the world, guaranteeing standardized training, and helping researchers across the nations of the world create and build a central database.