Is the Metaverse the Next Big Step in Health Care Evolution?

The metaverse has taken the world by storm, transforming how we live, play, work, deliver and receive our medical care. A multitude of digital universes, the metaverse coalesces many technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR) and blockchain, to offer a digital world so immersive and interactive that it could augment real-life experiences and diminish the barriers the physical realm presents.

Health care is one of the industries that is experiencing a significant shift as the metaverse becomes more advanced and broadly adopted. Its borderless nature and malleability are enabling patients to access health care from anywhere in the world and helping to elevate medical staff training via international collaborations and cost-effective training simulations.

The current challenges include how the metaverse might be applied and integrated into the health care ecosystem. To explore this, it's important to understand the benefits and opportunities the metaverse currently offers.

Improving Health Care Accessibility

The metaverse enables remote consultations (a health care service that proved significant at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to evolve), connecting providers and patients regardless of geographic location, helping improve health care accessibility and efficiency, and reducing travel costs for both medical staff and patients. In addition, the metaverse's borderless structure can remove impediments to health care caused by remoteness and time. Patients can interact with prospective hospitals' staff virtually, broadening patients' choices and enabling them to make informed decisions.

Elevating the Patient Experience

The metaverse enables more agile big data collection and analysis by allowing faster and real-time access to, and gathering of, significant amounts of information, often from multiple sources: patient health history, vital signs, medical records and even the environmental conditions of the patient's locality. Clinical capabilities can also be enhanced and expanded in the metaverse, primarily through virtual therapeutics, as it supports extended reality, encompassing augmented reality (AR), virtual reality and mixed reality (MR).

In a risk-free environment, health care providers can produce treatments for pain management, neurological disorders, and behavioral and physical health. For example, patients with disabilities can receive virtual therapy sessions and remote rehabilitation without requiring long commutes. Patients dealing with mental health issues such as PTSD and phobias can receive immersive exposure therapy in a controlled environment, in which they can interact with various simulations with the assurance of safety, and special needs children can learn real-life skills (such as crossing the road) in a safe space. The metaverse can also create a supportive setting for patients in general and build a virtual community where they can interact with others who have similar diagnoses.

Empowering and Enabling the Workforce

The metaverse could unlock innovative ways to train and strengthen medical workforces collaboratively with other institutions nationally and internationally. For example, hospitals can build a cost-effective education and training system in the metaverse to foster the growth and advancement of their staff. Various simulations can also be created wherein medical teams can practice their skills on digital twins (virtual replicas) of patients with certain medical conditions. The digital twins of patients will then demonstrate reactions from the interaction based on their medical profiles, equipping the staff to improve real-life performance and patient care delivery. In addition, medical students can benefit from enhanced residency training programs with interactive learning experiences from hospitals in different countries and peer-to-peer interactions with international students without hefty financial costs and travel inconveniences.

Boosting Employee Morale and Productivity

Blockchain infrastructure makes it possible to exchange virtual and real-world currencies. The decentralized nature of the blockchain disperses control and decision-making to a network, instead of centralized entities, ensuring everyone within the network holds the same data and verified transactions. Its decentralized structure can be used within a hospital's financial system to create a more efficient and transparent means for managing employee rewards.

By using a blockchain-based rewards system, hospitals can create a secure and tamper-proof ledger that records every transaction. This ledger is maintained by a network of users, eliminating the need for centralized oversight. As a result, employees can be rewarded in real-time for meeting goals or accomplishing tasks with accuracy and agility, without the need for lengthy bureaucratic processes. This immediate recognition can help employees feel more valued, which can improve job satisfaction and motivation. At the same time, by offering a more innovative and efficient rewards system, hospitals can differentiate themselves from competitors and attract and retain top talent.

Leading by Example

Since its inception in 1975, King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre (KFSH&RC), in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has been dubbed the Automatic Hospital, with its early journey toward automation and computerization. The hospital gradually implemented electronic medical records (EMRs) and other technologies to improve patient care and streamline processes. Since then, the organization has always been focused on gauging and maximizing the power of evolving digital tools to ensure its benefits are spread across every attribute of comprehensive and equitable care it provides to its patients.

KFSH&RC has begun to explore new ways it could offer its health care capabilities in the metaverse to leverage the benefits the digital world could offer its patient and staff community and to improve operational outcomes related to virtually integrated supply chains (pharmacies, for example) and patient flows. In addition, KFSH&RC adopted its THANAA (an Arabic term for "gratitude") blockchain rewards system—an initiative developed by the organization to incentivize and promote an enabling culture and workplace well-being among its staff members.

KFSH&RC has also expanded its academic training and education into the metaverse as part of its residency program. Recently, KFSH&RC hosted Gen Z physicians residing in Saudi Arabia, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Through their digital twins, they were able to interact in real-time and exchange knowledge. In the metaverse, the physicians shared their research work and experience-based insights, resulting in a collaborative and enriching learning experience.

The initiative aims to help the next generation of physicians to improve patient care through learning from best practices and observations globally, with a borderless educational and academic virtual experience. "Having a place in the metaverse where fellow medical professionals and like-minded peers could meet up makes me feel even more engaged and invested in my profession," commented Dr. Hamad Aldraye, chief resident of neurology at KFSH&RC.

Through expanding its operations in the metaverse, KFSH&RC unlocked multiple possibilities for elevating patient care, accessibility and employee development. At the heart of KFSH&RC's plan to explore the metaverse is its constant commitment to enriching its patient and family centered care. KFSH&RC's unwavering focus here enables the hospital to always be a step ahead in guaranteeing innovation-led quality patient and family health care experience.

Dr. Osama Alswailem is the chief information officer at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center, in Saudi Arabia.