Metaverse Creates New Opportunities in Healthcare

The metaverse can be imagined as the immersive sequel to today's text-and-picture-based Internet where users stare at a screen, ignoring physical reality. Instead, by taking advantage of advanced technologies including artificial intelligence, AR, VR, and ever-increasing connectivity (like 5G networks), the metaverse promises online experiences that are more immersive and interactive than those of the past, a seamless merging of the physical and digital worlds. This improved relationship bodes particularly well for the role that technology can play in both physical and behavioral healthcare. Specifically, the metaverse has the potential to impact healthcare because of the convergence of three current major technological trends: (a) telepresence, (b) digital twinning, and (c) blockchain. These three concepts could come together to create entirely new means for delivering care, potentially lowering costs and vastly improving patient outcomes. Finally, while innovations in digital healthcare are to be commended for granting easier access to care for a wider range of people, it is important to consider the ethical matters that come along with them. Pervasive societal issues like discrimination, privacy violation, lack of transparency, and public safety do not disappear just because treatment has gone virtual.