Can the Metaverse and Virtual Reality Contribute to Better Healthcare?

An expert offers an overview of AR and VR for provider organizations and discusses what these advanced technologies might help hospitals’ health systems accomplish.

The metaverse and virtual reality are promising technologies that might benefit healthcare.

Medical practitioners can test out the effectiveness of new surgical methods in the metaverse before trying them on real patients. And as an extension of telehealth, medical professionals can utilize virtual reality to access patients and examine them virtually.

Just what is the metaverse? How does virtual reality work? What can they add to healthcare? And where will these technologies offer innovations in the years to come?

To get answers to these questions, the CEO of Zinnov, a global management and consulting firm focusing on digital transformation in healthcare, Pari Natarajan, gave an insight.

Q. Please explain what the metaverse is. Why is the metaverse relevant to healthcare provider organizations?

A. Think of the metaverse as the next iteration of the internet, permitting a smooth merging of physical and virtual communities for individuals to work, play, transact, or socialize. It catalyzes technologies such as blockchain, IoT, and digital twins to unlock their greatest potential.

The metaverse holds the power to change healthcare in manifold ways. It enables smooth collaboration for personnel throughout the industry and geography to knowledge-share and collaborate. It will become effortless for healthcare specialists worldwide to assist in crucial surgeries using robotics and augmented reality technology.

Neurosurgeons at Johns Hopkins carried out the institution’s first augmented reality surgeries in living patients.

With its capability to blur the lines between the digital and physical worlds, the metaverse will aid in curating more immersive, involved, and realistic experiences across the healthcare value chain for all stakeholders involved.

Q. Please explain how virtual reality works and utilizes cases in healthcare.

A. Virtual reality boosts the quality, accuracy, and result of treatments in healthcare.

It aids in strengthening the general surgical performance by 230% compared with traditional methods, according to the clinical validation research study at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. It decreases the occurrence of diagnostic errors through repeated simulations and visualizations.

With its ability to simulate real-life conditions, virtual reality can be an important tool for physical rehabilitation programs and aid patients by simulating physical movements. Not only physically but it can also improve their cognitive rehabilitation efforts.

Other use cases of virtual reality in the healthcare industry include patient and pain management, illness prevention, surgical planning, immersive training, telehealth, remote surgeries, and medical simulations.

Q. How can the metaverse and virtual reality assist with surgery?

A. The metaverse and virtual reality enable surgeons to envision and simulate surgical procedures. George Washington University adopted an innovative virtual reality tool for neurosurgery, where surgeons could virtually examine a patient’s brain and body before the procedure.

This can be extremely beneficial to carry out training with realistic simulations. It additionally solves the lack of availability of in-person training labs, decreases the costs for conference travel and surgical equipment, and creates an immersive, hands-on learning experience.

It also lowers the time to perform surgeries by enabling surgeons to plan out surgical approaches ahead of the procedure. The related risks are also reduced through a force-feedback mechanism.

Surgical procedures utilizing such technologies are also performed by robot devices controlled by surgeons (at a remote location), which increase procedural accuracy and lower the associated risks and complications.

Q. What parts can virtual reality play in the world of telehealth?

A. The pandemic made it obvious that telehealth is here to stay, and virtual reality will advance the space.

Patient recovery is an area where virtual reality will undoubtedly play a crucial role. With real-time data inputs and having taken consent from patients, healthcare providers can recommend immediate and tailored solutions due to improved patient surveillance. This will also be useful for elderly care, where constant support is needed.

Telehealth has made quality healthcare accessible. Virtual reality will improve the quality of remote consultations as the previously virtual sessions/video calls resemble reality. Healthcare professionals will be able to see patients as 3-D avatars and examine and treat them much more accurately.

This will certainly additionally develop an improved experience for both patients and healthcare professionals and improve the human element via the process.

Q. Looking ahead, what innovations do you assume the metaverse or virtual reality can cultivate in healthcare in the years ahead?

A. Virtual truth allows widespread improved experiential service delivery at scale in healthcare. It will make a more immersive reality for patients, vendors/partners, and healthcare staff members and engage them holistically, involving all their senses. Further supporting hardware like virtual reality headsets will certainly become more accessible from a price and availability standpoint.

The rising adoption of digital twins in the med-tech space will allow amplified deep learning and insights regarding patients by analyzing big volumes of data and visually representing them to derive even more accurate and targeted solutions.

The metaverse also allows healthcare industry stakeholders to utilize digital twins as a testing ground for future technologies and forecast patient recovery cycles and treatment responses.

Read The Original Article On Healthcare IT News.

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