The Health Metaverse – A New Frontier?
By John William Gomez -June 17, 2021
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the health metaverse showing a virtual phone with health tech apps
Introduction
To gain an in-depth understanding of The Metaverse one must start with a clear definition and then perform a complex analysis of all foundational elements, as well as their impact on various industries in the global ecosystem.

Several industries have been leading the way in the design, development and deployment of The Metaverse, however given the current post-pandemic landscape this author wishes to highlight the implications for healthcare and the potential for a future Health Metaverse.

Global Impact
There are ongoing divergent opinions even among experts about how to optimally define the Metaverse, ranging from those that describe it as an innovative emerging technology poised to redefine our society and economy, and all the way to those that still consider it a futuristic state under development. This allows for significant misconceptions, misinterpretations and myths to persist in the general population.

One intriguing definition conceptualizes The Metaverse as a new universe, that allows us to reach new frontiers never imagined before.  In this new world we will be able to interact in totally novel ways that transcend our current physical and geographic boundaries and facilitate transformation of our current universe to a novel digital, social and economic Metaverse. These transformative changes are expected to have a profound and disruptive impact on the future of work, and it is likely that forward-looking companies embracing the benefits of The Metaverse will gain a competitive advantage.

Furthermore, there will likely be a significant impact on our societal emotional intelligence and on our behavioral interactions given the risk of dehumanization that can occur with such a high degree of involvement with converging emerging technologies that contribute to the creation of The Metaverse (such as AI, IoT, 5G, DLT, Web 3.0, VR, AR, XR, next generation computing, etc.)

The potential advantages of such an advanced technological global ecosystem are numerous, however we also have a moral imperative to mitigate the potential emotional, moral and ethical negative consequences. There are several strategies to accomplish this and some of the key drivers of being successful are proactive digital ethics programs and applying the principles of design thinking in order to ensure a Human-Centric Metaverse. Redesigning the current educational system will also be crucial if we would like future generations to not lose the capacity and vulnerability inherent to human interactions. Pedagogy in The Metaverse must also harmonize digital skills and emotional intelligence.

The Health Metaverse
The most recent pandemic has triggered an unprecedented acceleration and adoption of emerging technologies and has acutely highlighted the vulnerabilities we have in managing global population health, as well as the opportunities offered by deploying innovative solutions powered by these emerging technologies. The Health Metaverse could be one of the solutions addressing several global healthcare challenges. All aspects of the global healthcare ecosystem will need to undergo a profound digital transformation and disruption in processes, workflows, practices and delivery methods.

Opportunities
In this new digitalized, virtualized and hyperconnected Health Metaverse we can envision a new Metahealth Care Delivery System which would likely be a hybrid of existing and novel technologies.

Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality would be combined with IoT, DLT, 6G or even 10G networks, robotics, bring-computer interfaces, AI, cloud-, edge- and quantum computing and be deeply embedded in healthcare prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Additionally, healthcare payments, healthcare insurance, healthcare data governance, healthcare privacy and security will also have to be transformed and adapted to the demand of a Metaverse society.

Futurists are predicting new personalized healthcare digital identities, digital avatars, and digital smart cities that will be the hallmark of the Health Metaverse.

Challenges
As expected, with opportunities we can also expect many challenges. Healthcare has historically been an industry slow to embrace, accept and implement emerging technologies.  The challenges will likely fall into several domains such a technical (interoperability, portability, stakeholder customization), human factors (skills, resistance, mistrust, cyberattacks), legislative and regulatory.

Future Directions
Experience with past industrial revolutions would indicate that the transition to a Metaverse-powered Ecosystem will happen gradually, with an initial phase of hybrid education, hybrid processes and hybrid delivery of care. Given that The Metaverse will transcend industries and disciplines it is incumbent upon us to design new educational methods and professional training programs that will prepare The Metaverse workforce for success.

The global smart citizens of the future are likely to live in smart cities powered by The Metaverse.


Illustration: Christopher T. Fong/Protocol
Everything You Need To Know About The Metaverse
Everything you need to know about the metaverse
Janko RoettgersNovember 9, 2021
Silicon Valley has a new favorite buzzword: Ever since Mark Zuckerberg announced earlier this year that Facebook's future would be in the metaverse, everyone has been rushing to figure out what a metaverse even is. And when Facebook rebranded as Meta in October, metaverse fever swept the tech industry. From Microsoft to Nvidia, every company is suddenly in the metaverse business, and seemingly overnight, countless people became metaverse experts.

But what actually is the metaverse? Why does it matter, and who needs to worry about it? If the metaverse is truly "the next chapter for the internet," as Zuckerberg put it, it's important to understand and define it so as not to be caught flat-footed when (or if) the metaverse wave catches on.

WHAT IS THE METAVERSE?
The metaverse, at its core, is an embodied internet: a social sphere where people will be able to meet with the help of personalized avatars that make them feel more present than a plain video call. It's synchronous, which makes it feel more like real life than today's feed-based social media. Instead of catching up on what others have been up to, you'll meet with them in real time.

It will also be persistent, just like the world around us. When you revisit a metaverse space, you won't have to start over from scratch. And just like real life, it's going to encompass all kinds of things that you may want to do with other people: go to concerts and other events, play games, hang out, date and, yes, work and shop.

But to be very clear, the metaverse does not exist — yet. What we do have, though, are some predecessors:

Virtual reality. VR often gets confused with the metaverse, which is understandable. Having an embodied presence feels a lot more real if you wear a headset, as opposed to an avatar that you control with a keyboard or gamepad. But while VR, AR and other forms of spatial computing will be part of the metaverse, it's just as important that the metaverse will work across multiple device categories. It's not something that you dip in and out of for half an hour at a time, but something that accompanies you throughout the day: on your phone, your VR headset and eventually consumer-ready AR glasses.
Fortnite and Roblox. Both games have been hailed as early incarnations of the metaverse, and they do check a bunch of boxes: Fortnite and Roblox are both social spheres with avatars and in-world economies, and massive live events have demonstrated that they're about more than just gaming. At the same time, both titles are effectively standalone properties. Players can't take their Fortnite avatar to their Microsoft Teams meeting, and good luck finding a business outside of Roblox that accepts Robux for payments.
Ultimately, there's one big reason why we don't have a metaverse just yet:

The metaverse is a network. It's not one single service, but a collection of services loosely tied together, both by companies building dedicated roads between their services, as well as by people beating their own paths to get from one destination to another. That's also why some of the first generation of avatar-based services, like Second Life, are not the metaverse on their own. Just like the mobile internet isn't just one single app, and none of the apps on your phone would have succeeded if it weren't for the existence of many other apps and services, the metaverse depends on a multitude of interconnected services to succeed.

WHY THE METAVERSE MATTERS
Believe it or not, the rush to the metaverse didn't start with Zuckerberg falling in love with VR. Instead, it's driven by a multitude of factors. People are adopting avatar-based social gaming platforms by the millions; the pandemic has driven all of us to find new forms of real-time interaction; and companies like Apple, Amazon, Google and Meta all are trying to figure out the next big thing after the smartphone. And while these trends play out in real time, a few very important questions are still up in the air.

Who will be the new gatekeepers? The companies that make the AR and VR headsets of the future are in a strong position to financially benefit from, and impose rules on, the metaverse. One reason that Meta is so interested in the metaverse, as Zuckerberg has himself admitted, is that the company missed out on mobile hardware, and is now forced to play by the rules of Google's and Apple's app stores.
What about privacy, safety and mental well-being? Facebook, YouTube and other social networks have rightfully been scrutinized for their bungling of misinformation and privacy issues, as well as the effect they're having on the mental health of their users. All these issues don't disappear in the metaverse, but they will likely play out very differently. Hiring tens of thousands of moderators may not be the right approach to prevent hate and harassment in real-time environments, and spatial data gathered by headsets surveying people's living rooms raises all sorts of new privacy questions. Paying attention to these issues from the get-go will be important for both industry insiders and regulators alike.
Who is going to pay for it, and how? Large parts of today's consumer internet are based on advertising, with a healthy froth of subscription revenues on top. Some of those same models may work in the metaverse. We might also see a return to transactional business models, perhaps even powered by decentralized finance. The business models for these services of the future will have a major impact on the companies vying to build the metaverse, but they could ultimately also decide who gets to participate in these new worlds, from small businesses to everyday people.
THE PLAYERS
There are plenty of companies trying to build the metaverse. Here are some of the biggest players in the space:

Meta has so far spent $10 billion on metaverse technologies in 2021 alone. The company's efforts include its VR hardware, social VR apps like Horizon and its bet on AR wearables.
Roblox's proto-metaverse world generated revenue of $454 million in Q2 of 2021. The company also has more than 43 million daily active users, most of them kids.
Epic has made more than $9 billion with Fortnite in 2018 and 2019 alone, and the company's Unreal Engine is fundamental to a lot of AR and VR experiences.
Apple has stayed clear of the metaverse hype, but the company's massive investments in AR hardware make it clear that it wants the App Store to be part of whatever the future will bring.

Seoul says it will be the first major city government to enter the metaverse. On Nov. 3, the South Korean capital announced a plan to make a variety of public services and cultural events available in the metaverse, an immersive internet that relies on virtual reality. If the plan is successful, Seoul residents can visit a virtual city hall to do everything from touring a historic site to filing a civil complaint by donning virtual reality goggles.

The 3.9 billion won ($3.3 million) investment is part of mayor Oh Se-hoon’s 10-year plan for the city, which aims to improve social mobility among citizens and raising the city’s global competitiveness. It also taps into South Korea’s Digital New Deal, a nationwide plan to embrace digital and AI tools to improve healthcare, central infrastructure, and the economy in its recovery from the economic crisis caused by covid-19.

How Seoul’s municipal metaverse will operate
Seoul’s metropolitan government will develop its own metaverse platform by the end of 2022. By the time it is fully operational in 2026, it will host a variety of public functions including a virtual mayor’s office, as well as spaces serving the business sector; a fintech incubator; and a public investment organization.


The platform will kick off with a virtual new year’s bell-ringing ceremony this December. In 2023, the city plans to open “Metaverse 120 Center,” a place for virtual public services where avatars will handle citizen concerns that could previously only be addressed by physically going to city hall.

So far the plan offers sparse details about exactly what devices citizens will use to access the metaverse platform, though city officials emphasize that the goal is to broaden access to public city services, regardless of geography or disabilities. But specialized equipment could be a barrier for many people. Virtual reality headsets still sell for $300 and $600, and are not as widely accessible as smartphones and computers.

Smart cities’ next frontier
Municipal governments are using digital technology and real-time data to optimize city operations as part of the “smart cities” movement. The metaverse could be its next evolution. Although the details of how the metaverse will work are still hazy, even to the companies that are trying to build it, it’s a natural next step for Seoul.


The South Korean city is planning to use artificial intelligence to monitor its sewers and water waste centers. An AI chatbot serves as a public concierge, fielding public questions and complaints related to everything from parking violations to covid-19 protocols. Earlier this year, Seoul rolled out plans for a public internet of things network—a series of sensors and base stations throughout the city that collect data on things like traffic, public safety, and environmental metrics and feed them into a central operations platform managed by city workers.

The future of the metaverse is being built almost entirely by companies. Microsoft, Nike, and Facebook’s parent company Meta are all staking claims to digital real estate. South Korea is among the only governments attempting to recreate the virtual public square. But if they can, it could expand the utility of the metaverse to millions of citizens whom might otherwise be excluded.

Roblox and Healthcare’s Metaverse
Mar 16, 2021• 1

By KIM BELLARD

As neither a gamer nor the parent of a gamer, I’ve been proud that I’ve stayed even mildly in touch with the cultural phenomenon that gaming is.  I’ve written about, for example, the Metaverse, Fortnight, and e-sports.  Still, I somehow managed to be completely oblivious to the existence of Roblox, until they went public this week and was valued at $45b, larger than Electronic Arts (which I had heard of). 

Once again, I think there are lessons for healthcare.

P.J. McNealy, CEO of Digital World Research, described Roblox to NPR as: “Minecraft meets Nintendo, which meets Lego and mobile phones enable a whole bunch of it.”  Whatever the metaphor, Roblox is booming.  It was valued at $4b a year ago, but the pandemic was very, very good for it. 

Half of America children use Roblox.  Two thirds of its users are 16 and younger, and most of them were spending lots of time at home last year.  It is now estimated to have 37 million unique daily users, spending some 30 billion hours on the site last year.  It is available in 180 countries, in 11 languages.

What makes Roblox particularly unique is that it is not a game developer; it is a platform where users develop the “experiences”.  Roblox describes its mission thusly:

Roblox’s mission is to bring the world together through play.  We enable anyone to imagine, create, and have fun with friends as they explore millions of immersive 3D experiences, all built by a global community of developers.

It claims 8 million developers have created 20 million experiences — and that it paid over $300 million to them.  The games are free but users can buy and spend an in-game virtual currency (Robux), which can be exchanged for actual money (Roblox shares 30% of the revenue with developers).  At least one developer made over $1 million in a single year; over 1200 made at least $10,000, with over 300 making over $100,000. 

Mr.  McNealy believes the IPO will allow Roblox significant expansion:

This money will either give them an opportunity to build more content for the for the platform or to go to adjacent platforms like music or partnering with Spotify or movie service.  That’s where this is going to go.

CEO and co-founder David Baszucki isn’t content with the younger market, wondering: “So how do we make it possible for Roblox to connect with everyone in the world?”  Alex Hicks, cofounder of Roblox studio Red Manta, sees such potential, telling Polygon: “Lots of kids already know what Roblox is, but they’re just scratching the surface with the older audience.” 

In a February company blog post, Mr. Baszucki outlined some of the vision:

We see a future where tens of thousands of people can gather in a single instance to join a virtual business conference, attend a movie premier, or watch their favorite artists perform live.  We are working to make this vision a reality, innovating towards new technologies such as spatial audio and high-fidelity avatars with lifelike facial expressions.

Microsoft (Teams), Google (YouTube), and Facebook (Live) should all be looking over their figurative shoulders. 

Mr. Baszucki told Wired last year:

We will see a shift in the way people play, work, learn or simply hang out in 2021. Some of these connections will move into the Metaverse, a digital place where people seamlessly get together and interact in millions of 3D virtual experiences…[it is] arguably as big a shift in online communications as the telephone or the internet.

Ah, the metaverse again. 

To recap: a platform that relies on — and rewards — on user-generated content, thrives on shared immersive experiences, appeals to young people, and is fun.   Let’s see, which of those also apply to our healthcare system?  That’s right: none.

Healthcare is at least talking about platforms (e.g., Mayo Clinic Platform), but the closest thing the U.S. healthcare system has to a platform is probably Epic, which is renowned for poor usability and lack of interoperability.  Companies like AmWell would love to be the new platform, but are only slowly moving out from telehealth roots.  Optum is many things to many people, but not anywhere near being a platform.

Peer-to-peer support/advice is becoming more important in healthcare, but usually despite the healthcare professionals and institutions, not because of them.  Professional advice and treatment is still considered the “gold standard.”  Paying for patient-created “experiences” is unheard of. 

As for fun, well, when people use “Hunger Games” to describe what it is like to score COVID-19 vaccination appointments, it isn’t intended to convey any fun.  Healthcare may be allowing some games/gamification, but it is much too serious to take the importance of fun seriously.

Where is the healthcare platform that is built upon user-created content, paying those creators for how they engage other users in immersive 3D experiences?  “Participatory medicine” means simply allowing patients a say in their own care, which is a low bar Roblox wouldn’t even recognize.

Online gaming is a new industry compared to healthcare, but we’re already seeing the battle of its old guard and newer models.  In Venture Beat, Dean Takahaski contrasts Roblox’s IPO with Microsoft’s blockbuster acquisition of video game publisher Bethesda:

I see it as a contest between a promising part of the industry, as represented by the potential of the user-generated content of Roblox, and the old part of the industry, where Microsoft’s purchase of Bethesda is a new step in consolidation.

The way Techcrunch’s Luke Matney sees it:

The gaming industry has entered a very democratic stride as cross-play tears down some of the walls of gaming’s platform dynamics…While massive publishers have tapped cloud gaming as the trend that will string their blockbuster franchises together, they all wish they were in Roblox’s position.

Healthcare needs a Roblox.  It needs a platform that user created content and tools, among other things, can be built upon.  It needs a platform that engages users, using the latest technologies.  It needs a healthcare Metaverse. 

Such a company probably won’t come from within healthcare; e.g., Epic Games is more likely to create a healthcare Metaverse than Epic. 

I don’t know what a healthcare Roblox would look like; to be honest, I don’t really even know what Roblox looks like.  But I hope that there are some younger, smarter, more gaming-oriented people who can imagine what it might be, and that they make it happen. 

Kim is a former emarketing exec at a major Blues plan, editor of the late & lamented Tincture.io, and now regular THCB contributor.

Metaverse can help overcome challenges of medical training’
기자명 Kim Hye-in   Published 2021.07.09 16:33  Updated 2021.07.09 16:40
 
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Metaverse, a convergence of virtual and physical space, could help overcome limitations of medical training in the Covid-19 pandemic era, health experts said.

To utilize metaverse as an alternative to conventional technology, people need to expand the experience of metaverse for users to recognize the need for medical education, they said.

The word metaverse comprises the prefix “meta,” meaning virtual, and “universe,” telling the real world. It is a more advanced concept than the existing virtual reality (VR). The core technology of the metaverse is extended reality (XR), which encompasses VR, augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR).

Health experts engaged in active discussions over metaverse’s role in medical education, merits of the metaverse, and its limitations in the medical field at a conference, hosted by the Korean Society of Medical Informatics on Wednesday.

Jeong Ji-hoon, partner and co-founder of Digital Healthcare Partners (DHP), said “interaction” was the advantage of the metaverse and should be used more broadly.

Health experts discuss how to use metaverse for medical training at a virtual conference on Wednesday. Counterclockwise from the top left are New Base CEO Park Sun-young, Digital Healthcare Partners Partner Jeong Ji-hoon, Samsung Medical Center Professor Son Meong-hi, and Seoul Women’s University Professor Kim Myung-ae.
Health experts discuss how to use metaverse for medical training at a virtual conference on Wednesday. Counterclockwise from the top left are New Base CEO Park Sun-young, Digital Healthcare Partners Partner Jeong Ji-hoon, Samsung Medical Center Professor Son Meong-hi, and Seoul Women’s University Professor Kim Myung-ae.
“The biggest advantage of the metaverse is that it can generate interaction among participants, unlike the existing one-way education,” Jeong said.

“In medical education, it will be used for simulation training rather than for simple knowledge delivery.”

Metaverse-using medical training will be more effective in areas that require advanced hand skills and interactions, which will raise the need for additional technology, he went on to say.

In surgery, for example, not only the metaverse environment but the use of devices with good hand skills is important. Thus, corresponding hardware or tracking technology will be needed, he said.

“Metaverse technology should become diverse on a case-by-case basis,” he added.

As metaverse programs are still experimental, their validation (evaluating if a certain system produces results meeting the preset criteria consistently and documenting it) will not be entirely possible, Jeong noted.

Thus, the nation should expand the introduction of the metaverse rather than tightening regulations, he claimed.

Professor Son Meong-hi of the Department of Pediatrics at Samsung Medical Center said it was difficult to validate the effect of medical education, regardless of the use of metaverse. “It is more important to check the feasibility of metaverse rather than its effect. Then, if user satisfaction rises, the effect will follow naturally, and it can be confirmed retrospectively,” she said.

“Even if metaverse technology is still incomplete, there should be no restrictions in applying new technologies to medical education.”

The concept of the metaverse is still new to many healthcare professionals in Korean hospitals, Son said. However, to prepare medical education using metaverse in the future, they should know the merits of medical education in the metaverse environment, compared to traditional education or simulation-based education, and predict what kind of education will become available.

She hoped that more people could learn that metaverse makes it easier to develop educational content because the contents are accumulated in the metaverse environment.

New Base CEO Park Sun-young, who developed the medical simulation game Vulabo, also highlighted the need for metaverse introduction in medical training.

Park shared her experience of participating in various medical training sessions trying out Vulabo.

“Many professors focused on whether Vulabo service complied with the medical guidelines and verified learning design and evaluation tools thoroughly, hesitating a lot whether to introduce it,” she said.

As a content creator and technology developer, Park said the company was using verified evaluation tools and guidelines to develop a service.

To apply new technology to clinical care and measure effectiveness, it is important to raise the learning effect and satisfaction through feedback from the software aspect, rather than the hardware aspect, she said.

Kim Myung-ae, a professor at Seoul Women’s University College of Nursing, said the introduction of metaverse was crucial in nursing education because there was a gap between patient care and medical education.

She said the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the need for metaverse in nursing education.

“When I saw a presentation showing nursing training through virtual reality at a conference, I felt sorry that technology needs to be advanced more to meet the needs in the clinical scene,” she said.

Kim suggested prioritizing what is most needed in introducing metaverse could be much more effective for validation.

The purpose of using metaverse or simulation centers in nursing school is to narrow the gap between nursing education and patient care, she went on to say.

Instructors should develop content well so that on-site nursing skills can be configured in virtual programs, she said.

“Nursing universities have been facing a challenge because instructors had to teach students with their careers discontinued,” Kim said. “A program that incorporates clinical field experience should be made so that learners can feel that ‘there was no difference in clinical care after practicing this in the metaverse environment.’”

Howdy! We are back with an emerging topic in digital health space which is about “Metaverse”. Lets first understand what is Metaverse; Metaverse is the augmented virtual world which is derived by the convergence of virtual and physical space, where users can interact within the augmented world, to meet each other virtually and can immerse themselves in performing virtual activities that gives real experiences.  

While Metaverse is evolving, it holds new potential in healthcare that combines the technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Internet of Medical Devices, Web 3.0, intelligent cloud, edge and quantum computing along with robotics to provide new directions to healthcare.  

But the larger question is - can it bring the cost down while we embed all of them together to create the new health metaverse, in complying within the regulation.  

Nevertheless, lets look at some of the components of the metaverse, that are already making mark in healthcare  


Increase use of Virtua Reality in medical training 

Virtual reality is getting used by doctors and experts to train fellow doctors and medical staffs, wherein virtual reality can be leveraged to take a learner within a human body and can provide 3600 view of patient’s ailment or to replicate procedures that are applied in real world.  

The entire interactions can be recorded and viewed over the desktop screens to provide minute details 


Use of Augmented reality in Surgical procedures 

As surgical procedures were already using robotics, now complicated surgeries are all set to use augmented realities. Be it removal of cancerous tumors or performing a complicated spinal surgery, doctors are looking forward to new ways of performing these surgeries with precision. Usage of robotics or what is also known as robot assisted surgeries were already in use to perform complicated procedures with precision and flexibility.    


Gamification to connect and bring healthcare providers and consumers together 

As platforms like Roblox has changed the way gamification was perceived, more and more users are finding ways to collaborate and connect with other users. Now anyone can imagine, create or have funs with friends through such platforms. When it comes to healthcare, gamification is restricted largely towards wellness and fitness apps. With augmented reality has been seen in smarter workouts or guiding through virtual instructors.  

According to a report by  GrandView Research , The global augmented reality market size was valued at USD 17.67 billion in 2020. It is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 43.8% from 2021 to 2028.

According to Statista, the VR gaming market revenue in the United States alone is forecast to generate up to 19.5 billion U.S. dollars by the end of 2025.

Interoperability a key component 

As we know the next wave in healthcare is all about enhancing solutions which are interoperable and open, the metaverse will not be complete if the assets and data that creates these metaverse aren’t easy to port amongst different platforms and networks. Asset classes like avatars, 3D models, mixed-reality, and spatial environments work together with their meta data to form content packages that are the critical components of the metaverse. As the industry would evolve data and communication standards will also evolve making intra metaverse communication.  

Techs that will help build metaverse apps rapidly  

With companies like Microsoft supporting different tech stacks to build metaverse apps rapidly, this space is definitely going to get crowded. Some of the tech stacks provided by Microsoft on Azure around Metaverse  

Microsoft Mesh and HoloLens  

Microsoft Power Platform  

Azure AI and Autonomous Systems  

Azure Synapse Analytics  

Azure Maps  

Azure Digital Twins  

On the other side, AWS provides various solutions and services to enable Game Tech –  

Amazon GameLift for dedicated server hosting and  

FleetIQ to support multiplayer games.  

Amazon Lumberyard game engine.  

To conclude Metaverse is an emerging concept that will bring many new dimensions as the big social players bring different aspects of virtual reality and immersive experiences together, for healthcare segment which has largely remain traditional, it will be a great tool to learn, empower and provide blissful experiences to patients and providers.   

Below are some of the interesting news - 

Johns Hopkins Performs Its First Augmented Reality Surgeries in Patients

Johns Hopkins neurosurgeons have performed the institution’s first augmented reality surgeries in living patients. During the first procedure on June 8, 2020, the physicians placed six screws in a patient’s spine for spinal fusion surgery to fuse three vertebrae in order to relieve the patient’s chronic, debilitating back pain. For the second surgery on June 10, surgeons removed a cancerous tumor known as a chordoma from the spine of a patient. The doctors report that both patients are doing well.

Read More

Last year in September,  FundamentalVR expands its medical training platform with group learning feature

Read More

Insane AI, Loopin, Streak, others raise funding

Bengaluru-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered fitness training app Insane AI has raised $873,000 in a seed funding round led by early-stage venture capital fund Pi Ventures. 

Read more

One Medical Announces Agreement to Acquire Iora Health

Read More

Sweetch raises $20M for a personalized engagement system designed to boost health outcomes

Read More

Health and wellness apps maker Palta raises $100M Series B led by VNV Global

Read More

If you have a similar story or want to share your initiatives of how you are leveraging digital strategies to build engaging and immersive experiences for patients, doctors, nurses and other stakeholders, please write to us at  healthviva@taliun.com

Adios! 

Team Health Viva 

What does the metaverse hold for healthcare?
04 November, 2021
Many large tech firms believe the metaverse will be the next big thing. But what is it, and what could it mean for the healthcare sector? Sagentia Innovation’s Paulo Pinheiro, Head of Software, considers the potential of this virtual space.

There is a huge amount of excitement surrounding the metaverse at present. However, while the term is far from new, it is still just a concept without a universally agreed definition.

What is the metaverse?

It’s generally believed that the term ‘metaverse’ originated in the 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. The world depicted in the novel portrays humans as avatars interacting with each other and software agents in a 3D virtual space.

Most people envision the metaverse as a virtual space entered using a headset. It would connect various digital environments that could be used for everything from work to leisure activities like concerts, cinema trips or just hanging out. 

This presents significant opportunities for virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to become more mainstream. The metaverse will be to VR and AR what the modern smartphones were to the first mobile phones a few decades ago.

VR and AR technology has seen immense progress in recent years. High-end headsets can cleverly trick the human eye into seeing in 3D as animations move around in a virtual world. Another advancement is the roll out of 5G which will enable a more consistent and connected dynamic digital world on the move.

Nobody wants to be left behind if VR turns out to be the future of the internet. Wealthy investors and large tech firms believe the metaverse could be the next big thing, and they are keen to be part of it.

Metaverse trailblazers

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in July that the company aims to transition from being a social media company to a metaverse company in the next five years or so. In October, Facebook Inc rebranded as Meta.
Games company Roblox which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in March, describes itself as a metaverse company.
In September millions of people watched singer Ariana Grande perform virtually in Fortnite according to Epic Games.
Nvidia, which designs graphics processing units for the gaming and professional markets, has announced the launch of Omniverse, described as a metaverse for engineers. It will be available as an enterprise service later this year.
For now, everything is in the early stages. The evolution of the metaverse - if it happens at all - will play out between tech giants for the next decade, or maybe even longer. Nevertheless, there are early signs that healthcare could benefit from joining the metaverse; VR along with its cousin AR (augmented reality) are already having an impact on the sector. 

How VR and AR are infiltrating healthcare

New and disruptive technologies based on AR and VR are emerging to improve medical education and training as well as processes and procedures.

Medical learning and training

VR is used in the training of doctors and medical staff to take learners within the human body, providing a 360° view of ailments or replicating real-world procedures. 

Medical schools are also beginning to incorporate AR into the curriculum to provide students with valuable opportunities for hands-on learning. AR programs are used to simulate patient and surgical encounters, allowing medical students to visualise and practice new techniques. Further still, immersive experiences could be recreated from real surgeries where students will sense and feel the replayed real surgery as if they were the surgeon themselves.

It is not inconceivable that the metaverse could also become the first training ground for the next generation of surgical robots where via Artificial Intelligence, surgical robots would learn how to operate surgeries on humans.

Surgical procedures and pre/post-surgery assessments

Building on the existing use of surgical robots, more complicated surgeries are set to make increasing use of AR.

Potential applications range from the removal of cancerous tumors to performing complicated spinal surgery. These developments will further enhance surgical precision and flexibility for complex procedures. Already AR is providing surgical staff with new ways of accessing information that is more compatible with surgical workflows and the sterile field of the operating room, for example real-time guidance is provided in the surgeon’s field of view of the surgical site through integration with surgical navigation systems and fusion of data from multiple imaging sources.

Pre-surgery and post-surgery assessments can also benefit from the use of AR to optimise surgical outcomes with more personalised intervention rooted in data analytics.

Wellness, fitness and quality of life

Gamification – the use of game mechanics in non-game environments – offers new ways to connect healthcare providers and patients. Its use in healthcare scenarios is largely restricted to wellness and fitness apps at present, for instance AR is used to deliver smarter workouts with guidance from virtual instructors. 

It’s also been shown that VR can help improve quality of life for people with dementia. One study equipped patients with a VR headset to ‘visit’ one of five virtual environments, including a cathedral and a sandy beach. After 16 monitored sessions, researchers found the patients were better able to retrieve old memories, which improved mood and provided positive mental stimulation.

Is the future of healthcare in the metaverse?

Solutions involving VR and AR are already improving patient experiences and outcomes. Even simple procedures such as intravenous injections and blood draws can benefit from technologies like that from Accuvein which projects a map of a patient’s veins onto the skin.

More recently, Medtronic acquired the company Digital Surgery and Zimmer Biomet announced OptiVu™ Mixed Reality which leverages the Microsoft HoloLens to merge real and virtual worlds. The investments being made by these large medtech companies, combined with a growing number of startups developing AR and VR solutions, illustrates the way the surgical environment may change in the coming years.

Another example is Veyond Metaverse which brings global healthcare professionals together for simultaneous education, training and planning as well as collaborative medical procedures. According to the company website, it uses advanced cloud and real-time communication technology to “empower clinicians to practice their skills with the utmost precision to ensure everyone receives the best healthcare delivery anytime and anywhere.”

Whether this will result in healthcare joining the metaverse remains to be seen. However, anyone who has used a digital avatar at a work meeting or virtual event has already had a taste of what the future might hold. And we’re already seeing the creation of metaverse platforms geared towards the healthcare space.

While the metaverse is still in its infancy, it holds tremendous potential for the transformation and improvement of healthcare. It will be fascinating to watch the situation unfold.

Is There a Place for Healthcare in the Metaverse?

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Towards a metahealth industry? 

The announcement by Mark Zuckerberg on October 28, 2021 that Facebook would become an entity called “meta” has triggered an immediate interest about the possibilities of the inclusion of healthcare in such ecosystem.

 

At this stage, most people in the tech world are aware of the notion of metaverse: a visual representation of reality by means of virtual reality software. Not VR (Virtual Reality), not AR (Augmented Reality), not 3D internet. Meta.

 

By shifting Facebook from a ‘social networking service’ towards a ‘social technology company’, the wager tends to enlarge the business perimeter while placing the connectivity feature of the service as a holistic one, which will inexorably include a wide array of services, from communications to retail, working stations, leisure and entertainment and… healthcare?



Digital citizens, digital patients?
Our current society has turned users into digital sources of data. We daily produce hundreds gigabytes of data that are collected and processed my multiple data companies that enhance this data for mainly commercial purposes. We have become digital citizens.

Users have turned to digital solutions for their healthcare services, and the 2020 pandemic has exacerbated this trend, not because we felt like it, but because we had no choice. But I may digress. The fact is that users have grown confident of teleconsultation and many digital and distant services sourced by data and personal devices and wearables.


The big leap will consist of transforming these features into a comprehensive metahealth ecosystem. We can see the clear opportunity: creation of avatars for more realistic consultations, personalized care, treatment and diagnosis through data interconnectivity, use of digital twins, simplified providers and payment. However, the challenge is larger and probably hard to delimit.

 

Traditionally, medicine is a person-to-person relationship. Patients confide to a doctor that will use many signals to study symptoms, from emotional responses, physical reactions and, yes, data. Interoperability is a key word in digital healthcare, as it is a growing need for all providers and stakeholders in a larger space to be able to share portable and compatible data across systems, institutions, platforms, and countries. The threat of cyber attacks is also a current topic in all digital platforms, and companies are aware of the risks and the difficulty of maintaining an unhackable system.



The allegory of a social cave
Mark Zuckerberg has recently said that ‘the defining quality of the metaverse is presence -which is the feeling that you’re really there with another person or in another place’ (Zuckerberg M 2021).
 

The metaverse is conceived as an idea of place where people will face a reality, without experiencing the reality. It feels more like an escape strategy than a higher immersive situation of the self.  It might seem that there is an effort to develop alternate reality spectrums instead of facing the real issues people are experiencing right here and right now. The idea that this metaverse will be hosted by an iteration (reincarnation?) of Facebook might not make everybody at ease.

 

I cannot help but reflecting on the Allegory of the cave, by Plato. In it, the assumed reality was the projection of passing objects representing living things in front of a source of light -a fire, seen by people that were, in fact, chained. They were prisoners.

 

 

To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images. (Socrates, 'Allegory of the cave', Plato)

 Facebook’s Evolution Into ‘Meta’ Has Incredible Potential To Revolutionize Healthcare
Sai Balasubramanian, M.D., J.D.
Sai Balasubramanian, M.D., J.D.Contributor
Healthcare
I write about clinical medicine, innovation in healthcare, and health policy.
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Facebook has undoubtedly become a generation-defining phenomenon. For billions of people around the world, it redefined traditional notions of communication, connectivity, news gathering, e-commerce, and social interaction. Although the company started as purely a social media network, it evolved into something more: a cultural icon which represents the way people interact with each other, keep track of milestones in a local or national community, and perhaps even find and connect with others that have shared interests.

Facebook’s boldest move yet is its recent evolution and rebranding into “Meta,” which CEO Mark Zuckerberg formally announced earlier this week. Meta is an amalgamation of the company’s broader vision to help connect people alongside new and cutting-edge technology that will redefine social interaction. As the press release explains, “The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together — and do things together you couldn’t do in the physical world. It’s the next evolution in a long line of social technologies, and it’s ushering in a new chapter for our company.”

Indeed, the announcement of this evolution has been long-overdue; in the last few years, the company has invested significant time and capital into embracing new ways to communicate, especially in the augmented and virtual reality spaces. Meta is a culmination of these efforts, but is also a starting-stage for many more such innovations to come.

Facebook Unveils Meta
MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 28: Facebook debuts its new company brand, Meta, at their ... [+] GETTY IMAGES FOR FACEBOOK
Though there has been significant talk about how this technology will transform social interactions, gaming, and learning, there is another massive industry that the Metaverse could possible revolutionize: healthcare.

Broadly speaking, the company defines the Metaverse as “a set of interconnected digital spaces that lets you do things you can’t do in the physical world. Importantly, it’ll be characterized by social presence, the feeling that you’re right there with another person, no matter where in the world you happen to be.” This bodes a powerful sentiment for healthcare. The Metaverse unlocks all types of new potential applications in the realms of telehealth, virtual care, remote patient care and monitoring, data-driven care, etc. Especially if it can elevate virtual care from a 2d to a 3d experience, it may become a generation-defining revolution in medicine .

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Other innovation giants are already stepping into similar territory. Earlier this year, I wrote about how Microsoft’s Mesh platform is attempting to embrace mixed reality and how it may congruently disrupt healthcare. Industry stalwarts are investing billions of dollars in deciphering how augmented and virtual reality may allow for better, more personalized delivery of medicine, and possibly even mimic “physical presence,” one of the key limitations to telehealth modalities currently.

But Metaverse’s potential goes even further. Perhaps the connectivity which Metaverse proposes is not something that someone does, but rather, is something that one lives within. If the Metaverse, as proposed, becomes a new way to interact with friends, a new workplace to conduct business within, and a venue to possibly receive healthcare, perhaps it becomes a new reality—a place where people spend most of their time.

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Facebook employee Elza Uzmanoff tries out an Oculus device at the company's corporate headquarters ... [+] AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Facebook has already been working on Smart Glasses and its famous Oculus virtual reality platform—both of which may soon become as integral to a person’s body as a cellphone or smartwatch. Just 20 years ago, no one ever imagined that they would carry a phone or watch on their body nearly 24 hours a day that could count calories or detect heart rhythms—and yet, today, it has become a common facet of life. Similarly, if these connectivity devices indeed become integral to the everyday human experience, it has significant potential applications in the realm of healthcare. Some very basic examples include: remote monitoring of patients that require critical care; better data and insights into clinical outcomes (e.g. blood sugar monitoring, heart rhythm tracking, etc.); augmented tracking of physical health, virtually; and far more advanced applications that are even beyond the realm of current imagination.

Of course, this opens up an entire behemoth of questions and concerns regarding privacy, security, and patient safety. While the technology is promising and can significantly change the way medicine is practiced, how will the Metaverse ultimately safe-guard one of the most important aspects of healthcare: patient privacy and security? Indeed, with so much connectivity, significant vulnerabilities also potentially emerge, begging the question about what measures will be taken to ensure proper ethical cadence.

Finally, just because it can be done, the question remains—should it? Should there be such a push to transition healthcare so significantly into the digital and virtual spheres? Perhaps there are incredible benefits to be gained from this. But, if it isn’t done correctly, it may also pose a threat to the personalized nature of the patient-physician relationship. Indeed, amidst a push to embrace new innovation and technology, society cannot afford to lose the humanistic touch of healthcare.

Facebook’s (now Metaverse’s) leadership has a monumental task ahead of it in navigating and deciphering this new, exciting, and bold territory. Indeed, the applications for this technology are endless, especially with regards to medicine and the delivery of healthcare. Time will indeed tell if and how the company will be able to leverage this technology to augment healthcare in a safe, secure, and patient-centric manner.

Navigating The Metaverse Through Online Community

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By Global Director of Reddit’s KarmaLab, Will Cady

What is your Metaverse strategy?

Whether that question induces your eyes to roll or your eyebrows to raise, it’s sure to be one you’ll encounter from your customer, your boss, or your investors soon. That is, if you haven’t already.

Yes, here we are at the gates of yet another great paradigm shift in the wild wide world of digital marketing. We’ve navigated the waves of excitement around VR/AR technology. We’ve awaited the rising of tides promised by 5G connectivity. We’ve anticipated the tempests of the blockchain raining down hailstorms of cryptocurrencies and NFTs in blustering newsletter headlines that continue to flood our inboxes. The Metaverse, though. Ah, the Metaverse. It is the perfect storm that promises to combine all three.

Is the Metaverse just another hype cycle like the others that came before it? Or were they the harbingers of something truly transformative? Are we on the cusp of the big heavy in Phase 3 of the Digital Marketing cinematic universe?

The initiated have come to refer to the Metaverse as Web3. Not, mind you, “Web 3.0”, which is almost by design the shibboleth to make apparent the uninformed. To refer to the Metaverse as Web3 is truly helpful, though, for framing what exactly this particular moment means.

The Metaverse is to Web3 as the Blogosphere was to Web 2.0. It is, by all sober assessments, the next great civil engineering project of the Internet. There is much being said and still more to come about the exciting details of the technology powering this great transformation of our digital economy. What remains missing, though, is a clear understanding of why it matters and how marketers can build a strategy around it. I hope to provide that here with this simple frame: It’s about Space vs Time.

The Metaverse, Web3, is a shift into digital spaces moving out of the digital timelines that defined Web 2.0. Web 2.0 brought us time-based platforms such as social feeds on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Snap, and Instagram alongside publisher platforms like Medium. These are timelines that we scroll through. A series of moments that rapidly pass you by if you miss it. Web3 exists on space-based platforms. The obvious digital spaces are the VR/AR experiences promised inside of Oculus headsets and habitable gaming worlds like Fortnite or Warcraft. The not-so-obvious digital spaces are Clubhouse chat rooms, Reddit subreddits, Discord Servers, and Slack Workspaces.

These are not timelines that we scroll through. These are spaces we stay in. Whether we click in or boot up to go to them, we’re there when we mean to be there. The digital spaces of Web3 aren’t just powered by attention, they’re brought to life by intention. For marketers, evolving with this shift means evolving from a strategy of reach and frequency, which maximizes the moments your brand is a part of in time, to a strategy of depth and connection, which maximizes the connection that your brand makes with a space.

Simply put, Web3 for brands is about engaging with online community.

Our experience on Reddit is unique, because it bridges the worlds of both Web 2.0 and Web3. As a platform, it presents a feed of spaces. Altogether, these spaces are communities that in their interconnection already offer a blueprint for the map of the Metaverse-to-be. KarmaLab, Reddit’s in-house creative strategy agency, has helped hundreds of brands make meaningful connections with communities. With that, we are confident that we can share a formula to help you build a Metaverse strategy for your brand – regardless of what the glimmering technological details of its future may be.

First, a map of the different spaces that matter to a brand’s business:

Spaces by your brand. Built, owned and operated with your business’s resources.
Spaces for your brand. Built by fans, run by fans. Dedicated to your product or service.
Spaces into your brand. Built for cultures that embrace what your business provides.

Second, a compass to help your brand navigate how to move between these spaces. Start with who you are and then ask some questions about the space your brand is entering…

Where you are…what is the culture of the space your brand is entering?
Why you belong…what are the needs your brand fulfills for this space?
How you engage…what are the behaviors that foster connection between people in this space?
What you want….what are the key business results you want to achieve from this space?

This formula has led brands on Reddit to foster a community of  collective art as Adobe has demonstrated with r/PsBattlesLive or even to unite beer lovers in the creation of their very own Reddit brew, as we saw Lagunitas do this summer. And it doesn’t have to be big, custom campaigns. This formula has also ushered insightful discussions with brand experts and luminaries ahead of product launches as well as simple games between brands and communities. The common thread is meaningful, two-way engagement, and online communities provide the blank canvas to harness this connection.

It’s a complex, incredible future we have ahead of us as people and as marketers. For all of the wonders in the sea changes of the ever-evolving world wide web, it’s the places where people gather that provide us with a comforting shore. There are many such shores waiting for you in the open spaces of Web3 and its Metaverse-to-be, so find your ground and start building.
HUMANS AND TECHNOLOGY
The metaverse is the next venue for body dysmorphia online
Some people are excited to see realistic avatars that look like them. Others worry it might make body image issues even worse.

By Tanya Basuarchive page
November 16, 2021
artwork of a person trying to break out of a box facebook metaverse
DANIEL ZENDER
In Facebook’s vision of the metaverse, we will all interact in a mashup of the digital and physical worlds. Digital representations of ourselves will eat, talk, date, shop, and more. That’s the picture Mark Zuckerberg painted as he rebranded his company Meta a couple of weeks ago.

The Facebook founder’s typically awkward presentation used a cartoon avatar of himself doing things like scuba diving or conducting meetings. But Zuckerberg ultimately expects the metaverse to include lifelike avatars whose features would be much more realistic, and which would engage in many of the same activities we do in the real world—just digitally.

“The goal here is to have both realistic and stylized avatars that create a deep feeling that we’re present with people,” Zuckerberg said at the rebranding.


If avatars really are on their way, then we’ll need to face some tough questions about how we present ourselves to others. How might these virtual versions of ourselves change the way we feel about our bodies, for better or worse?

Avatars are not a new concept, of course. Gamers have used them for decades: the pixelated, boxy creatures of Super Mario have given way to the hyperrealistic forms ofDeath Stranding,which emote and move eerily like a living, breathing human. 

But how we use avatars becomes more complicated when we expect them to act as representations of ourselves beyond the context of a particular game. It’s one thing to inhabit the overalls and twang of Mario. It’s another to create an avatar that acts as your ambassador, your representation, your very self. The avatars of the metaverse will be participating in situations that might involve higher stakes than treasure in a race. In interviews or meetings, this self-presentation might play a bigger, far more consequential role. 

For some people, avatars that reflect who they are would be a powerful source of validation. But creating one can be a struggle. Gamer Kirby Crane, for example, recently ran an experiment where he tried to do one simple thing: make an avatar that looked like him in 10 different video games.

“My goal wasn’t so much to explore the philosophy of avatars but more to explore the representation that’s available in current avatars and see if I could portray myself accurately,” says Crane, who describes himself as a “fat, gay, pre–medical transition trans man.”

Some games allowed him to bulk up his body but bizarrely had him burst out of his clothes if he tried to make the character fat. Other games didn’t allow for an avatar to be male with breasts, which Crane found isolating, as it suggested that the only way to be male was to be male-presenting.

None of the avatars, in the end, felt like Crane—a result he wasn’t surprised by. “Not that I need validation from random game developers, but it’s dehumanizing to see the default man and the accepted parameters of what it means,” he says. 

Crane’s experiment isn’t scientific, nor is it any indication of how the metaverse will operate. But it offers a peek into why avatars in the metaverse could have far-reaching consequences for how people feel and live in the real, physical world. 

What complicates the issue further is Meta’s announcement of Codec Avatars, a project within Facebook’s VR/AR research arm, Reality Labs, that is working toward making photorealistic avatars. Zuckerberg highlighted some of the advances the group has made in making avatars seem more human, such as clearer emotions and better rendering of hair and skin.

“You’re not always going to want to look exactly like yourself,” he said. “That’s why people shave their beards, dress up, style their hair, put on makeup, or get tattoos, and of course, you’ll be able to do all of that and more in the metaverse.”


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That hyperpersonalization could allow avatars to realistically portray the lived experience of millions of people who, like Crane, have thus far found the technology limiting. But people might also do the opposite and create avatars that are idealized, unhealthy versions of themselves: puffing out their lips and butt to Kardashian-ify their appearance, lightening their skin to play into racist stereotypes, whitewashing their culture by changing features outright.

In other words, what happens if the avatar you present isn’t who you are? Does it matter?

Jennifer Ogle of Colorado State University and Juyeon Park of Seoul National University conducted a small study this year that might shed light on how avatars affect body image. They recruited 18 women between the ages of 18 and 21 who said they had some body image concerns but had not received any treatment for them. The women were separated into two groups. One attended a body positivity program before creating a virtual avatar that looked exactly like themselves; the other only participated in the body positivity program.

The results illustrated how difficult it was for women to see themselves from a third-person point of view. One woman said, “I did not like how [my avatar looked] … I don’t know, I just didn’t think I looked like that … it kind of made me feel self-conscious. Just kind of bad about myself.” The body positivity courses led to a momentary rise in self-esteem, but it was nullified once they saw their avatars.

Related Story

The metaverse could actually help people
It sounds like—and often is—a dumb catchphrase used by the tech elite. But the metaverse has real potential to change how we think about pain management, grieving, and systemic prejudice.

That doesn’t bode well for the metaverse, where avatars are likely to be the primary way we communicate and interact with each other. Noelle Martin, a legal researcher at the University of Western Australia and coauthor of a forthcoming paper on Meta’s metaverse, is raising just such concerns. “If people are able to customize their 3D hyperrealistic virtual human avatars, or alter, filter, and manipulate their digital identities, [there is] a concerning potential to impact body dysmorphia, selfie dysmorphia, and eating disorders … producing] ‘unrealistic and unattainable’ standards of beauty, particularly for young girls,” she said via email.

That fear is not unfounded. Facebook has been criticized for silencing internal research indicating that Instagram has a toxic effect on body image for teenage girls. A report in the Wall Street Journalfound that the app’s content focus on body and lifestyle leaves users more susceptible to body dysmorphia. But in the metaverse, where avatars will be the main way to present oneself in many situations, vulnerable people could feel even more pressure to adjust the way they look. And Martin says that customizable avatars in the metaverse may be used to “inflame racial injustices and inequities” as well.

Meta spokesperson Eloise Quintanilla said that the company is aware of potential problems: “We’re asking ourselves important questions such as how much modification makes sense to ensure avatars are a positive and safe experience.” Microsoft, which recently announced its own metaverse plans, has also been studying avatar use, though its research has been heavily focused on workplace settings like meetings.

The prospect of metaverse avatars for kids raises a whole other set of legal and ethical questions. Roblox, the wildly successful gaming platform whose primary market is children, has long used avatars as the primary means by which players interact with each other. And the company announced its own plans for a metaverse last month; CEO and founder David Baszucki declared that Roblox’s metaverse would be a place “where you have to be whoever you want to be.” Thus far, Roblox avatars have been playful, but Baszucki said that the company is pursuing completely customizable ones: “Any body, any face, any hair, any clothing, any motion, any facial tracking, all coming together … We have a hunch that if we do this right, we will see an explosion of creativity, not just among our creators but also our users.”

Ultimately, avatars represent how we want to be seen. Yet there is no plan for what might happen if and when things inevitably go wrong. The technology has to walk a fine line, staying realistic enough to be true to people’s identities without threatening the mental health of the humans behind the avatars. As Park says: “We won’t be able to stop the … metaverse. So we should wisely prepare.” If the Facebook papers show anything, it’s that social media companies are well aware of the health effects of their technology, but governments and social safety nets are behind in protecting the most vulnerable.

Crane understands the risks of more realistic avatars for those who might have body dysmorphia, but he says the power of being able to see himself in the virtual world would be indescribable. “For me, the joy of seeing myself represented accurately would mean that I am not the only person who believes my existence is valid,” he says. “It means a team of developers also see the potential of me existing, as I look, as a man.”


Why you should care about Facebook’s big push into the metaverse
The futuristic tech Mark Zuckerberg is investing billions in could remake the internet.

By Shirin Ghaffary  Nov 24, 2021, 3:15pm EST
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaking from in front of a virtual tropical background.
Courtesy of Meta
It’s the next big breakthrough in technology. It’s a joke. It’s a marketing strategy. It’s a techno-dystopian nightmare. It’s the metaverse — defined most simply as a virtual world where people can socialize, work, and play — and Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes it is the future of the internet and of his trillion-dollar company.

Although “metaverse” became a buzzword after Facebook changed its company name to “Meta” last month, many people are still trying to understand what exactly the metaverse is and whether the futuristic technological concept is something they should take seriously.

Many critics and skeptics have mocked Zuckerberg’s plan to change Facebook from a social media company to a metaverse company. Some critics say that by focusing on the metaverse and renaming itself while the company is reeling from a PR crisis, Facebook is distracting from the problems it creates or contributes to in the real world: issues like harming teens’ mental health, facilitating the spread of disinformation, and fueling political polarization.

Even some of Facebook’s own employees, according to internal company communications viewed by Recode, are concerned about the metaverse — as reflected by questions several employees asked ahead of a weekly staff Q&A on Facebook’s internal communications platform, Workplace. One question, which was highly upvoted by employees, was, “How could we avoid a dystopian reality, where the metaverse is used as an ‘opium for the masses?’” Another highly ranked question asked, “How will we meaningfully put safety, integrity, and responsibility first in the Metaverse? We barely are able to cover the real world today.”

Other observers have noted that Facebook’s metaverse idea isn’t new — plenty of other companies, like Roblox, Nvidia, and Microsoft, have also been building out virtual worlds with virtual or augmented reality tech. And others point to how undeveloped the technology is — in the version of the metaverse that Facebook has built so far, the digital avatars it offers as stand-ins for our physical bodies are cartoonish, awkward, and often legless.

Even if these criticisms and questions stand, Facebook’s investment in the metaverse is something we should take seriously. Mark Zuckerberg sees the metaverse as the “successor to the mobile internet,” an invention that reshaped all our lives by allowing us to go online anywhere, and made it possible for Facebook’s current business to exist. If the metaverse becomes everything Zuckerberg wants it to be, it could similarly shake up the world, shifting our existence from being rooted in the physical world to one in which our digital presence increasingly supplements our real one.

In response to concerns about the metaverse, Facebook, which recently renamed itself Meta, pointed to a statement from a September blog post by Facebook executives Andrew Bosworth and Nick Clegg that reads, in part, “Meta is not going to build, own, or run the metaverse on its own. We are starting conversations about our vision for the metaverse early, before some of the technologies even exist. ... We’re discussing it now to help ensure that any terms of use, privacy controls or safety features are appropriate to the new technologies and effective in keeping people safe.”

Facebook also said it’s doesn’t want to be the only one developing the metaverse. “This won’t be the job of any one company alone. It will require collaboration across industry and with experts, governments and regulators to get it right,” reads another line from the blog post.

The company is betting a lot on this concept succeeding. It’s putting some of the brightest engineering minds in the world to work on this project, acquiring virtual reality and augmented reality companies, hiring over 10,000 people to work on it, and backing the initiative with tens of billions of dollars. And Zuckerberg, who ultimately has unilateral control over his company, seems genuinely excited about it.


Mark Zuckerberg fencing with a hologram, in an image of what Facebook imagines for the metaverse’s future. Courtesy of Meta
While the timeline is still unclear, it’s likely we’re headed toward a future where we could all be using some yet-to-be-determined version of the metaverse to go online. And Facebook is determined to play a major role in building and shaping this new realm, meaning that even if Facebook doesn’t single-handedly own the metaverse (as it has insisted it won’t), it’s still striving to wield control over it. That means Facebook may one day have even more influence over our daily lives.

Today, Facebook still has to operate under the parameters set by Apple and Google, which make and control the world’s dominant smartphone operating systems. But in this new world that will likely rely on VR/AR headsets and digital sensors, Facebook is striving to create its own rules and operating platform.

So even if you’re not itching to jump into the metaverse anytime soon, you should pay attention to it, and to how Facebook is investing in it.

So what is the metaverse, really?
On a philosophical level, the metaverse, as Zuckerberg and others have defined it, is a way for us to make our virtual lives more seamlessly integrated with our real ones.

It will be “like we’re right there with people no matter how far apart we actually are, we’ll be able to express ourselves in new joyful, completely immersive ways,” said Zuckerberg in an October speech during which he demoed his vision of the metaverse.

The idea is to create a more immersive internet, in which we’ll use tech like AR and VR to spend our time engaging in virtual spaces and experiences rather than the physical world. The term was first coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, but now, Zuckerberg and many other tech executives want to make it a reality.

Matthew Ball, a technology investor who wrote a definitive series of essays about the metaverse, explained it to me in part like this:

“Right now the internet is primarily something that is ‘push.’ You are pushed information, you receive an email, you receive a notification, you then pull up your device to access that.” The difference with the metaverse is that it’s an “embodied engine” you are “already within, rather than reaching out,” Ball said.

Practically, that means this world will disengage us from our physical realities: the office, the living room, the outdoors. We will instead plug into our headsets or otherwise be immersed in another environment.

Depending on how you see it, that could mean an improvement to your life; your surroundings or your physical appearance can be updated virtually. Or it can be read as a dystopian concept, as though the metaverse is for people who are escaping the grim circumstances of the real world (which is how it was envisioned in the novel Snow Crash).

For now, though, any conversation about the metaverse is largely hypothetical. Facebook will be the first to tell you that it’s still in its infancy. Zuckerberg has said that it “does not fully exist” yet, and that we have just the “building blocks” — like Facebook’s Oculus Quest 2 headset, which costs $299 and has significantly lowered the entry price point for VR devices. For comparison, an HP Reverb G2 Virtual Reality Headset currently costs $450, and the HTC Vive Cosmos goes for upward of $600.

But to take this hypothetical conversation to another level, I stepped into Facebook’s metaverse using a loaned Oculus headset. The first time I tried it out, I was impressed. The graphics have come a long way since I last used a VR headset (just a few years ago), and that made my experience transporting. But in a reflection of how young the technology still is, I found it impractical to use for long stretches of time, especially outside of an entertainment or gaming capacity.


A Recode reporter’s glimpse into Facebook’s current prototype of the metaverse. Shirin Ghaffary/Vox
Before I got started in the metaverse, I shifted furniture around in my apartment so I could explore without bonking into corners. After I put on the Oculus VR goggles, I moved on to the most important step: setting up my digital avatar.

Facebook gave me options to customize my avatar with features like skin tone, clothes, makeup, eyebrows, and even facial wrinkles. After spending 20 minutes tweaking my avatar to look more like me, I settled on a cartoon version of me that looked close enough. Then I headed to my default Oculus 3D home screen, a virtual room that looks like a tropical hotel lobby with palm trees, hanging egg-shaped chairs, and views of red rock mountains in the distance — a definite upgrade from the decor of my 500-square-foot studio apartment.

Virtual avatars in a virtual waiting room.
Facebook (which recently renamed to Meta) envisions more people will spend time hanging out socially in the metaverse. Courtesy of Meta
In its current form, my options for stuff to do in the metaverse were limited to activities like playing games, watching VR videos, and attending meetings. I played some games and watched YouTube videos in 3D; the highlight was dancing with a robot with gummy arms that beckoned me to twist and twirl with it.

Then I took a mock work meeting using Meta’s VR meeting software, Horizon Workrooms, which gave me a glimpse of how Facebook is envisioning the future of work in virtual worlds.

As I sat in a virtual meeting room with my cartoon avatar, I was able to do some things I couldn’t on a video call: I could turn my head toward my meeting mate and hear her voice more loudly than when I turned away; I could pinch my fingers to draw a note on a virtual chalkboard wall (although this was a bit challenging to get right), and I could see meeting participants all hang out in the same “room” together, rather than their heads cropped into a mosaic of side-by-side 2D boxes like they would be on a Zoom call. But there were clear drawbacks — mainly, that my avatar didn’t have any legs (because the headset can’t pick up your leg motions the way it can your head and hands, there are no legs in the Horizon Workrooms app), and I looked less professional than a normal video or picture of myself.

Four avatars sit around a virtual meeting table.
What work conference meetings currently look like in Facebook’s metaverse. Courtesy of Meta
After I spent a few hours in the metaverse, more drawbacks of this new world emerged. For one, I started to sweat and feel nauseated. My headset weighed on my face. Anytime I wanted to play a game in this space that Facebook hadn’t developed itself, I had to go through the process of creating a new avatar from scratch. The initial wonder I had felt started to drain away. It’s hard to imagine myself wanting to hang out in the current version of Facebook’s metaverse for long stretches of time.

That being said, technology develops quickly, and it’s easy to imagine a world where all the practical problems I had with the metaverse are solved with lighter headsets, advanced hardware, and improved avatar graphics. But there are major technical challenges for Facebook to sort out here, and they’re going to take investment.

Why Facebook is going after the metaverse
Those are investments Facebook is willing to make because it sees the metaverse as the successor to the mobile internet. The technology creates an opportunity for Zuckerberg and Facebook to get ahead of the competition.

Unlike Apple or Google, which created iOS and Android, Facebook doesn’t control an operating system. Facebook has famously feuded with Apple over the fees the company charges for purchases made on iPhone apps, and the general control it exerts over companies like Facebook via its terms for developers.

For Facebook, this is a chance to become less reliant on Apple and Google.

“Not only is there an extraordinary opportunity for Facebook to build value in the metaverse, but it also provides them another opportunity to establish something that they lack and that has been a hindrance for years,” Ball told me. “For any of these major tech companies that have the assets, resources, capabilities, and interest in the metaverse, it absolutely makes sense for them to be investing in it.”

However, some close to the company see Facebook’s investments in virtual reality as a diversion from fixing the company’s tedious real-world problems.

A competitor in a virtual boxing ring faces a large virtual opponent.
A mockup of an envisioned fitness game in the metaverse. Courtesy of Meta
It’s a “lot more fun to build a metaverse” than it is to answer the tough questions Facebook is facing about issues like political polarization, the spread of misinformation, or teenagers’ mental health, Brian Boland, a former vice president of partnerships and marketing at Facebook, told me.

And that makes sense: For Zuckerberg and his company, the metaverse presents an opportunity to shift Facebook’s mission back to building something new, rather than only fixing a troubled existing product.

Facebook could become an even bigger part of our lives
If the metaverse as Facebook envisions it succeeds, it would mean that the company will become even more powerful than it is today.

Right now, the two tech giants that effectively control entry to the mobile internet, Apple and Google, set some parameters around Facebook’s business.

Facebook designs its mobile app software to run on Apple’s and Google’s operating systems. In turn, Apple and Google take a 30 percent cut of any financial transactions that take place in Facebook’s iPhone app (a policy Facebook has long denounced). Apple also can pressure Facebook about its content policies, like in 2019, when tensions flared between the two companies after Apple threatened to kick Facebook out of the App Store if it didn’t do a better job preventing people from using its platform to traffic domestic workers in the Middle East.

The metaverse presents a potential future where Facebook won’t have these constraints anymore. If Facebook succeeds at being a pioneering founder of the metaverse, then it would be the company building and selling virtual reality headsets used to access that metaverse, and it could control a major app store distributing metaverse apps. This would all give Facebook a level of control and influence over the future internet that it doesn’t have today on the mobile web.

At an immediate level, that means even more people would use Facebook, and they would do so in a way that’s more immersive and interactive than how they use its current products.

If you think Instagram or Facebook’s main app can suck people into filter bubbles of engrossing, endlessly scrolling content, imagine people plugged into headsets, focused only on the Facebook-engineered alternate reality they’re in.


Mark Zuckerberg shows an early version of Facebook VR tech at a developer conference in 2016. AFP via Getty Images
And if you’re already concerned about Facebook’s impact on privacy, the metaverse would open a new world of data sources that the company could track: finger movements, facial movements, and in the future, potentially brain reading. While Facebook has shut down the facial recognition tech it once used on its main platform, it said it will continue to potentially use it in the metaverse, as my colleague Rebecca Heilweil reported earlier this month.

Facebook says it’s taking privacy, moderation, and safety concerns seriously, pointing to a blog post earlier this month by soon-to-be Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth that reads, in part, “technology that opens up new possibilities can also be used to cause harm, and we must be mindful of that as we design, iterate, and bring products to market. We want everyone to feel like they’re in control of their VR experience and to feel safe on our platform.” The company says it’s collaborating with outside partners including civil rights groups, government agencies, and nonprofits to make the metaverse safe, and has funded related outside research.

Facebook’s efforts could end up normalizing spending time in the metaverse the way it normalized sharing our private lives on the internet. Already, during the pandemic, the lines between our “real” life and our digital life have become more blurred, as billions of people around the world have depended on technology in unprecedented ways to connect with other people through interactive games, mock office settings, and escapist television.

“The pandemic led to extraordinarily more time [spent] in virtual worlds, and the destigmatization of time in those virtual worlds,” Ball said.

Of course, it’s not at all clear if Facebook will succeed in its metaverse ambitions. When Google attempted to take VR/AR products mainstream with Google Glass in 2014, it failed because the tech was seen as uncool and privacy-invasive.

Facebook will have to convince people to give up their time in the real world for participating in the metaverse instead, and to trust Facebook — a company mired in privacy and political scandals for the past five years — to be their stewards of this new realm. Users could instead use competing metaverse products from Microsoft, or perhaps Apple, which is reportedly working on its own VR/AR efforts. They could also choose to opt out of the new technology entirely.

And political scrutiny will likely also be an issue. As my colleague Peter Kafka has written, regulators who are concerned about Facebook’s potentially monopolistic power in the economy may start turning their attention to the company’s many new VR/AR acquisition efforts.

In light of all these unknowns and potential challenges, it’s too soon to say whether the metaverse will indeed become the next version of the web, and even if it is, whether Facebook will be the dominant player. But it’s still an important experiment worth paying attention to. If the relentlessly ambitious Zuckerberg is devoting thousands of employees and billions of dollars to pursue the idea, the odds are high that the metaverse will be more than a passing, oddball whim from a billionaire tech CEO.

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HEALTH AND SCIENCE
Op-ed: What you hear about Covid in the Metaverse should scare you
PUBLISHED THU, NOV 18 20212:32 PM EST
By Brian C. Castrucci and Frank I. Luntz
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In this photo illustration, a smart phone screen displays a new policy on Covid-19 misinformation with a Facebook website in the background, on May 27, 2021, in Arlington, Virginia.
In this photo illustration, a smart phone screen displays a new policy on Covid-19 misinformation with a Facebook website in the background, on May 27, 2021, in Arlington, Virginia.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
Brian Castrucci is an epidemiologist, public health practitioner and president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation. Frank Luntz is a Republican pollster and communication advisor.

It’s not what you say that matters. It’s what people hear. And what people are hearing on social media regarding Covid-19 in general, and the vaccines in particular, should scare you.

On the day that Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta, John Carmack, the consulting chief technology officer for Oculus (Facebook’s virtual reality unit), acknowledged the potential harm in the digital world, saying, “If there is a demonstrated harm, then yes, we should try to mitigate the harm … I think generally the right thing to do is to wait until harm actually manifests.”

That’s akin to the fire department arriving to a house only after it’s been burned the ground. As has been made clear during the Covid pandemic, we’re already too late. 

The impact of social media on health goes beyond Covid. Long before the pandemic, social media had been linked to worsening mental health, increased risk for eating disorders, and misinformation about cures for diseases like cancer and diabetes. The question isn’t whether we should act. It is why we haven’t acted yet.

In the real world, there are rules and regulations in place to protect the public. From food and product safety to air and water quality measures, Americans expect some level of common-sense protection from known harm for the things we use and consume daily. Why should a virtual world be any different?

Social media has been weaponized to spread misinformation about Covid and the vaccines, which has contributed to lower vaccination rates and, ultimately, cost American lives. We don’t yet know what the “metaverse” will look like, but it’s not hyperbolic to assume misinformation will fester and spread just the same, if not worse.

Morning Consult conducted a recent poll for us that provides additional proof of the negative impact of social media use on our ability to save lives during the pandemic. Those who said they share information daily on social media are the most likely to believe unfounded and inaccurate statements about Covid including incorrect information about infertility, the impact of the mRNA vaccine on DNA and the severity and prevalence of the virus.

Social media is also influencing people’s willingness to get vaccinated — or not. Just over half of the unvaccinated respondents said social media was pushing them to wait or forgo the vaccine, and the vaccination rate among people who said social media was one of their primary sources of information was 16% lower than the rate among the general public.

Even in this era of hyper-sensitivity to free speech and expression, much of it deserved, 53% of Americans agree that social media companies should restrict or remove what they determine to be misinformation or disinformation about Covid and vaccines. The battle against misinformation goes beyond this pandemic as false and misleading information poses a real and measurable threat to our collective and individual health.

We have the opportunity to address the vulnerabilities that the pandemic has exposed. Regulators must hold social media companies and others accountable and responsible by engaging the public health community and ensuring that Internet regulations include common sense public health protections.

Our nation, and especially the public health community, can’t be caught flat-footed again when the next crisis or pandemic hits. As the digital world evolves, so must public health. In a new era of “techno public health,” collaboration between public health practitioners and social media could include:

Partnerships between social media companies and public health practitioners to create, adopt, and implement accepted public health principles and protocols for the digital world.
Congress creating a “digital world” safety office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to monitor incidence of misinformation and deliberate disinformation on social media platforms and support ongoing research about the impacts of social media, misinformation, and public health knowledge and outcomes.
State and local governmental public health agencies creating roles for digital community health workers. Community health workers are trusted public health educators and health care navigators in the real world and could be trusted influencers in the digital space. Agencies can start to develop these roles now, leveraging American Rescue Plan Act resources.
When it comes to Covid and the vaccines, there’s room for debate about policies like vaccine and mask mandates. And social media channels provide a place where ordinary people can have robust discussions. However, facts are not debatable.

The harmful impact of misinformation is not hypothetical – it is real, and it is personal. Alaska’s chief medical officer, Dr. Anne Zink, recently wrote about her observations as an emergency physician.

“My patient (who remains hospitalized) was suffering not just because of the virus, but also because of the deadly combination of misinformation and disinformation in a broken health-care system, in a country of broken trust,” she said.

When do we decide as a society that enough is enough?



Metaverse medical treatment may come earlier than Metaverse
CoinYuppie • 2021-09-30 07:22 • Metaverse & NFT News
That is not the other you, that is yourself.
Have you imagined the future of the world?

In the era of such rapid technological development, every day’s technological changes and breakthroughs have brought us closer to the “new world”. I am curious, this “new world” will be the cyber -punk look? Imagine the screens of “Ghost in the Shell” or “Blade Runner”. This kind of “high-tech, low-life” scene is probably not a scene pursued by humans?

Metaverse medical treatment may come earlier than Metaverse
At that time, how did we seek medical advice? How to operate? Will the pain of illness be reduced? I am more curious.

A concept of the recent fire may give us the answer-Metaverse. The concept of meta-universe first appeared in Neal Stephenson’s science fiction novel “Snow Crash” in 1992, and in July of this year, because of the remarks of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg) Detonated again, Zuckerberg said that Facebook will take five years from a social media company to a meta-universe company.

So, what is the meta universe?

Metaverse medical treatment may come earlier than Metaverse
Matthew Ball, an investor who pays attention to Metaverse, gave several major characteristics of Metaverse: continuity, real-time, compatibility, economic attributes, connectivity, and creativity.

This is a world that will not be interrupted, and corresponds to our real world in real time. Each of us can become a part of this world; of course, we can also sell labor in exchange for wages, or get returns through investment and financial management; The data and units in this digital world are also interoperable, and there will be no situation where different tokens are used between different platforms; of course, there are also groups such as organizations and companies——

You can think that the “meta universe” has all the forms of the real world. Imagine that it is a “substantial” Internet, where we can not only view content, but also be in it. All people and things in the real world are digitally projected into this cloud world, where you can do anything you can do in the real world. And different from using a computer or mobile phone to surf the Internet, we will have a real sense of body in the meta-universe.

Like the description in “Avalanche”, you will also have an “Avatar” of your own, roaming in the world of the metaverse in the first person. The current more complete interpretation of the metaverse is the movie “Top Player” ( The virtual world “Oasis” in Ready Player One)-but Oasis is not a complete meta-universe.

Metaverse medical treatment may come earlier than Metaverse
You may be stunned by me, it doesn’t matter, we are not doing science popularization of the meta-universe today, and no one can even accurately describe the true appearance of the meta-universe. Everyone has just reached a consensus. However, the arrival of the epidemic has indeed made the imagination of the metaverse come faster-after all, everyone has no way to travel far, only “wandering”-there is more demand for the immersive experience of the virtual world.

Yes, the indispensable technology of the meta-universe, in addition to the bottom-level infrastructure, XR (Extended Reality, extended reality technology, refers to a combination of real and virtual, human-computer interaction, generated through computer technology and wearable devices The environment, the concept includes AR/VR/MR, etc.) is an indispensable part. Seeing the XR technology, the mirror-like concept of “Meta Universe” finally became clear in my mind, which also solved my confusion at the beginning of the article: What is the medical scene of Meta Universe like?

As early as ten years ago, our country had already used AR technology to perform brain aneurysm surgery for patients. Today, XR has been used in more than 15,000 operations; schools use VR technology to teach students anatomy ; Use VR to help pregnant women alleviate the pain of childbirth-perhaps “Meta Universe Medical” will come earlier than “Meta Universe”.

Building is inseparable from the game, New York-based production company Statespace game has game combines healthcare and say yuan in the universe together , and raised more than $ 98 million in funding. Statespace’s Aim Lab is a program that trains players to shoot and aim. Although CEO Wayne Mackey is a game maker, he is also a doctor of neuroscience at New York University. After Aim Lab’s monthly life on the Steam platform reached 5 million, Mackey has A plan to link games and neuroscience.

Today, Statespace has expanded their digital health business by cooperating and researching with Mount Sinai Hospital on cerebral palsy, cooperating with Indiana University and the University of Delaware to develop concussion applications, and cooperating with neurotechnology startup Kernel. For example, commercial applications for stroke rehabilitation.

Metaverse medical treatment may come earlier than Metaverse
In addition to studying neuroscience through games, surgery will of course also be an important part of future medical treatment.

In the usual operation, avoiding the intricate human structure to locate the lesion can be said to be a major difficulty in the operation. If there is a realistic simulation teaching before the operation, or precise guidance during the operation, that would be great. NS. Surgical Theatre is here to solve this pain point-different from using 3D printing technology to do pre-operative simulation, but in a lighter way.

Provide patients and surgeons with an immersive, inside-out view of the patient’s anatomy through 360° XR visualization technology, enabling them to see the invisible locations-from patient participation, surgical planning, doctors’ interdisciplinary cooperation to entry The operating room can provide assistance throughout the patient’s outpatient and surgical procedures.

On September 2, during the head separation operation for one-year-old conjoined twins in Israel, the doctor used a 3D model based on MRI, CT and angiography scan images to simulate the connection of the twins’ blood vessels, meninges, skull and skin, and then used Surgical. Theatre’s VR model in order to simulate the operation and plan in the most accurate way.

Metaverse medical treatment may come earlier than Metaverse
In April of this year, Surgical Theatre announced a collaboration with Medtronic to provide an augmented reality platform for skull surgery.

Medtronic connects its StealthStation S8 surgical navigation system with Surgical Theater’s SyncAR technology to provide neurosurgeons with a real-time and clearer vision during complex skull surgery. This combined technology is expected to improve the accuracy and efficiency of complex skull surgery and make surgery Doctors can see hidden anatomy and vascular structures, pathology and diffusion tensor imaging.

Metaverse medical treatment may come earlier than Metaverse
In such a hot field, the presence of large companies is also essential, and Microsoft is also paying attention to the medical and health field. Holo Lens 2 is a head-mounted hardware device developed by Microsoft. Wearing Holo Lens 2 can achieve similar functions as Surgical Theatre’s 360° XR. Doctors can use it before, during and after surgery to provide patients with faster and higher-quality care at a lower cost.

“Holographic projection during surgery, coupled with the patient’s own data, can reduce operation time, complication rates, and radiation exposure.” “When explaining procedures to patients, XR is a huge benefit for us because we can Use interactive 3D images to explain everything to better eliminate their worries.” said the doctors.

Their own doctor is “life-saving” in the physical world so, XR technology did make people more plus health and longevity, but the universe yuan medical scene it will stop there? The rapid development of technologies such as brain-computer interfaces, AI, IoT, somatosensory devices, and quantum computing will inevitably bring us more room for imagination.

Can the metaverse make us live longer in the physical world? Can we eliminate our pain? Will we have smell and taste in the meta-universe? Will the blind have vision in the meta-universe? Or like “Upload”, after the death of the body, the spiritual will is perpetuated in the digital world? If the meta universe can “change fate against the sky,” then does time still have meaning for us now?

Francis Fukuyama, a political economist, wrote in “Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution”, “Biotechnology will dehumanize humanity… but we are not aware of our loss. What a valuable thing. Maybe we are on the other side of the huge watershed between human and post-human history, but we didn’t realize that the watershed has formed, because we no longer see the most fundamental part of human nature.”

What will it look like in the new world that comes in the meta universe?

Bringing The Medical Field To The Blockchain Metaverse
admin by admin  November 21, 2021 in Blockchain
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Story continues

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Surgeons cautiously embrace medical metaverse
George Lawton
@glawton
November 12, 2021 3:55 PM
Medical robot. Medical operation involving robot. Robotic Surgery. Manipulators performing surgery on a man
Image Credit: Shutterstock
Join gaming leaders, alongside GamesBeat and Facebook Gaming, for their 2nd Annual GamesBeat & Facebook Gaming Summit | GamesBeat: Into the Metaverse 2 this upcoming January 25-27, 2022. Learn more about the event. 

At the Future Surgery Show in London, it was clear that surgeons were cautiously embracing a medical metaverse to improve collaboration and medical outcomes. In many ways, the surgical industry has been a leader in embracing cutting-edge technologies like surgical robots, augmented reality, and improved patient modeling. It was equally clear that these pieces are still growing in siloed pockets that are just starting to come together.

“This is the year of robots,” declared Professor Shafi Ahmed, Chief Medical Officer at Medical Realities.

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Established medical device leaders like Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic are introducing serious competition to early pioneers like Intuitive Surgical, who demonstrated the first Da Vinci robot in 1997. Medtronic recently secured European Approval for its Hugo line of robots, and Johnson and Johnson have been promoting its new Ottava system. Both companies have also partnered with NVIDIA as part of the Clara line of tools for building out the medical omniverse.

In some ways, this feels like the equivalent of Ford and GM finally jumping into the ring with Tesla. A validation that surgical automation is the next big thing, in the same way, that assisted-driving electric cars are the future of transportation.

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January 25 – 27, 2022

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But getting there will require not just better tools, but considerable efforts to transform data workflows and governance. Reliably capturing, organizing, and sharing medical data presents numerous cultural, institutional challenges that are more complicated than setting up a Google Street Maps program for human bodies.

Incremental progress
Ahmed, who is also a practicing surgeon at Barts Health NHS Trust in the U.K., has been a bit of a pioneer in this field, having introduced the world to the surgical metaverse in 2016. Over 55,000 people watched the 360-degree live surgical broadcast. The rest of the industry is just catching up with him.

A glance around the show floor revealed that most cutting-edge advances were making practical progress towards this aspiration. One vendor touted the clarity available from the introduction of 4K imaging to the operating room. Braun showed off a new 3D display that allows surgeons to look ahead with better ergonomics during extended operations rather than hunched over a microscope. And Epiqar was highlighting a Zoom-like service for the operating theater with privacy and compliance built-in.

In short, these kinds of incremental advances are likely to provide the most immediate value for the bulk of surgeons. One big issue is that surgeons are still sorting out the privacy and compliance issues with improving the surgical arts. The latest cameras make it easier to record detailed footage of how a surgeon managed to successfully perform a challenging operation. And surgical tool vendors also want to show off how their latest innovation made a big difference.

But the actual data is still a gray area. Hospitals allow surgeons to store and share it as long as it does not contain any identifying information. This gives surgeons some freedom to show off their best moves and learn from their peers. But it also limits the use of this information to improve patient outcomes in the long run. Daniel Goldberg, CEO of Epiqar, said, “This video is not integrated into the patient record, but it should be.”

The next significant advances in surgical automation could benefit from a deeper integration between surgical video and a patient’s medical record. This could help train AI capabilities that guide surgeons, much in the same way that Tesla’s constantly watching cameras could lead to more capable self-driving capabilities.

Waze for surgeons
In the short run, Ahmed believes surgeons are likely to see the most benefits from adding navigation capabilities to the surgical theater. A Google map of the body could help navigate surgical instruments to the right place or alert surgeons when they should consider removing an extra bit of suspect tissue. This could help even expert surgeons work more quickly and accurately, much like Google Maps helps people avoid traffic jams even when they know the route by heart.

But over time, these systems will improve, particularly when they can gather more data, not just about the video but how the surgical instruments are used themselves. For the most part, the existing surgical robots are still directly operated by a human surgeon. They are valuable because they can more control than might be possible with manually wielding a scalpel and forceps.

They also capture data about how the surgeons navigate various procedures. This data is already woven into a Da Vinci surgical simulator, which helps surgeons master new skills or practice before cutting someone open.

Down the road, these could support surgeons in more collaborative ways, much like driver assistance features can automatically break when required. In the immediate future, these systems will play more of a role in augmenting surgeons to do a better job rather than replacing them.

In the interim, surgeons, hospitals, and medical device makers will need to improve their approach to capture, manage, label, and use the data. Ahmed observed, “The hype is that AI will change the world. And now in 2022, AI can provide some good value, but it still does not do the data well.”

How the metaverse will transform health
Daniel Zahler	Nov 5	
2
Vitamin Z is a newsletter about health and wellness. If you are new, you can join here.

Facebook last week announced it was renaming itself and investing $10 billion to build the metaverse.

It’s easy to dismiss Facebook’s—ahem, Meta’s—announcement as a slick PR move. People are wary of the company sinking its tentacles deeper into their personal lives. There are valid concerns about digital addiction and mental health.

I see the announcement a bit differently. The metaverse as a concept goes far beyond Facebook. It could usher in new possibilities for health and wellness.

A new generation of virtual health
I recently led a project for one of the world’s biggest tech companies. They’re developing a new system to bring interactive, social mixed-reality experiences into the home.

As I spoke to AR/VR developers and visual effects artists, I gained a new appreciation for this technology’s potential. The metaverse can be thought of as a 3D immersive environment shared by multiple users, in which you can interact with others via avatars.

People tend to think about the metaverse as VR, but it also encompasses AR (augmented reality), XR (extended reality) and MR (mixed reality, or merged reality).


Personally, I’m more excited about AR than VR. Why? VR cuts you off from the world around you. AR—technology that overlays interactive digital content on the real world—enhances the world around you. 

How could the metaverse transform health and wellness? Unlike today’s virtual health tools, which can feel cumbersome, the next generation of virtual care will feel more like rich human interactions that recreate the in-person experience.

In this piece I’ll share six ways that AR, VR and MR are unlocking new approaches to healthcare—from mental health to pain management, surgery, fitness, physical therapy, telehealth and virtual patient care.

1. Mental Health
Doctors are prescribing VR games to treat conditions like brain fog, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

A VR game called EndeavorRX by Akili Interactive in June 2020 became the first ever prescription-strength video game approved by the FDA to treat ADHD in children.


A company called Rey is using VR to treat social anxiety. Studies from Oxford University found that patients who used automated VR therapy experienced a 38% decrease in anxiety and avoidant symptoms over a six-week period.

Therapeutic VR is being used to treat veterans with PTSD. There’s an average of 20 U.S. military veteran suicides every day. In an effort to help combat this, VA hospitals across the country have begun offering a technology called BraveMind. The system, which delivers VR exposure therapy, has been shown to be an effective way to treat PTSD in veterans.


2. Pain management
Dr. Brennan Spiegel of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has studied the use of VR to manage pain for hospitalized patients:

“Virtual reality is a mind-body treatment that is based in real science. It does more than just distract the mind from pain, but also helps to block pain signals from reaching the brain, offering a drug-free supplement to traditional pain management.”


Therapeutic VR is being used for burn victims at the University of Washington, pediatric patients at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and women in labor at Cedars-Sinai.

A research team from UCSF and AppliedVR found that providers treating Medicaid patients can integrate VR as an effective treatment for chronic pain. AppliedVR’s platform has been used by more than 30,000 patients in 240 health systems globally.

3. Surgery
Last June, a surgeon at John Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland, conducted the first spinal neuro-navigation procedure guided by an AR headset called xvision by startup Augmedics.

Timothy Witham, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Neurosurgery Spinal Fusion Laboratory, said:

“When using augmented reality in the operating room, it’s like having a GPS navigator in front of your eyes in a natural way so you don’t have to look at a separate screen to see your patient’s CT scan.”

Neurosurgeons are using special AR microscopes that overlay critical information about brain structures on the surgical field. Technology called SyncAR shows a detailed visual of the specific body part that is being operated on, built using a patient's anatomical scans such as an MRI or a CT scan.


A company called AccuVein has invented an AR scanner that projects over skin and shows nurses and doctors where veins and valves are in a patient’s body. Such technologies can make medical procedures faster and more reliable.

4. Medical Training
Learning medicine often requires advanced visuospatial perception—whether it’s for assessing organ placement during surgery, or for understanding physiology at a cellular level. There are limitations to what you can learn from a textbook.

Mixed-reality (MR) medical training could be more effective in areas that require advanced hand skills. It could help guide use of surgical equipment. Using VR or AR in surgical procedure training allows the trainee to perform steps on a virtual patient or have patient information superimposed with reality.

A study showed the use of VR simulators helped in diagnostic and surgical procedures, improving novice hospital residents’ laparoscopic skills in terms of error and procedure time reduction.


I spoke with an executive at GigXR, a company developing mixed reality healthcare applications for clinical training and education. He said: “Our immersive simulations enable collaborative group learning and better outcomes for both learners and patients.” They’ve licensed their system to medical and nursing schools and the Department of Defense.

These tools could expand access to top-quality medical education and care. Students and patients in low-income areas could have access to resources from the best institutions in the world, via immersive virtual experiences.

5. Virtual fitness
More people are supplementing their gym routine with VR-based exercise. Meta last week announced it was acquiring VR fitness subscription service Supernatural. The startup is like Peloton for at-home VR training sessions.


VR could be “your new physical therapist,” the New York Times wrote in April. A study of patients recovering from stroke or spinal-cord injury found VR exercise has the potential to improve rehabilitative outcomes compared with traditional exercise.

A company called XRHealth provides VR physical and occupational therapy at home, and is covered nationally by Medicare.

One benefit of VR therapy is that it can provide specific data to the clinician and patient on how often and how well the patient accomplished each exercise and where adjustments are needed. Gamification of these VR tools can make monotonous rehab experiences fun, enjoyable, repeatable, and therefore more sustainable with longer-term benefits.

There have been studies on AR’s potential to enhance post-stroke rehabilitation. The technology can shorten recovery times by making it easier for patients to do their exercises at home.

One challenge for healthcare systems is keeping patients engaged in their recovery once they’re out of the hospital. Home-based AR systems could transform how doctors manage chronic conditions like diabetes, tying into wearable blood-glucose monitors and providing interactive recommendations for patients in their daily lives.

6. Telehealth and virtual patient communities
While Covid has accelerated the growth of telehealth, current solutions are limited. They don’t recreate the intimacy of the in-person patient experience.

The metaverse may enhance telehealth solutions, bridging the distance between patients and providers. It can elevate virtual care from a 2D to a 3D experience, changing the way patients interact with healthcare providers in a fundamental way.

Virtual patient communities could become more fun and engaging with AR and VR. We may see the rise of virtual spaces specific to chronic conditions like Parkinson’s and diabetes. Patients, providers and caregivers would be able to connect in more intimate, natural ways—even if they’re separated by thousands of miles.

There will be challenges to realizing the potential of the health metaverse: technical (interoperability, portability), human factors (skills, resistance, mistrust), legislative and regulatory.

The technology underlying the health metaverse is still a few years away. But we’re already seeing examples of how VR and AR can make a difference in health and wellness. I’m excited to see how this technology enables new solutions for patient access and improved care.

In the words of one VR futurist: 

“The world is about to be painted with data. The canvas is as broad as the physical world, and blank as a fresh sheet of paper.”

Until next week,

MedRoom bets on the metaverse to reshape distance learning in medical schools
Part of one of the largest private education groups in Brazil, the company wants to take its virtual laboratory to colleges and hospitals throughout Latin America


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Use virtual reality to better train doctors and thus be able to reduce the number of deaths caused by medical errors. Its a plan that sounds easy to talk about, but hard to accomplish. Applying design, engineering, special effects, and scientific research, Brazilian startup MedRoom is betting it can make that promise become reality.

Founded in 2016 by entrepreneurs Vinicius Gusmão and Sandro Nhaia, the startup believes it can help doctors, teachers, and students with its virtual environments. And has drawn the attention of Ânima Educação, the fourth largest private education group in Brazil.

The edtech was acquired by Ânima in November 2020 and is now part of the group that owns Anhembi Morumbi, São Judas, and Unisul, among other private universities. Transaction values were not disclosed.

READ ALSO: Edtech giants are poised for ascension

With the acquisition, the startup will definitely set foot in both education and health, explains MedRoom co-founder and CEO, Vinicius Gusmão. And, with a consistent advantage: agility.

“We talk to more people because of the group’s network, but the biggest gain was in development pace. Not only from a technical point of view but also in the depth of discussions on how much the products actually serve for the academy. We now have a gigantic laboratory, which is the group’s faculties”, explains Gusmão.

Given the challenges and possibilities of the partnership, the company expects, still in 2021, to expand its business to other educational institutions. Currently, the company’s solution is licensed to at least 30 institutions (including hospitals and colleges) in Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Paraguay.

In 2022, the goal is to also take its virtual laboratories to hospitals and pharmaceutical companies all over Latin America.

Virtual labs and hybrid learning: enter the metaverse
Edtech’s main solution is the Atrium, a virtual reality software focused on teaching anatomy, with a complete 3D model of the human body. All structures, appearances, and functioning organs were modeled with the collaboration of specialists from Hospital Albert Einstein.

In this virtual anatomy lab, students can freely examine the human body, explore each structure, isolated organs, and systems in a way never seen before, says Gusmão.


Sandro Nhaia and Vinicius Gusmão (right), founders of MedRoom. Photo: MedRoom/Courtesy
However, the COVID-19 pandemic challenged the solutions offered by the startup. After all, as much as the environment developed by the company is virtual, to experience it, students had to be in a physical space.

“We had a product before the pandemic, which was an anatomy laboratory in virtual reality. It was a virtual product but based on traditional education. So we were defied to bring a new proposal: build a hybrid health education approach, our own metaverse”, says the CEO of MedRoom.

READ ALSO: Latin America’s most promising edtechs, according to HolonIQ

The company is expected to launch in November a platform that goes beyond the laboratory shown by virtual reality glasses. This metaverse must be tested first in the Medicine courses of the Ânima group universities.

With the pandemic, we saw the need for students to have access to these contents at home so that they could carry out both distance learning and asynchronous learning

VINICIUS GUSMÃO, CEO OF MEDROOM
“We were able to develop and validate a hybrid teaching proposal. We built a virtual universe where we have the anatomy laboratory, and we are building clinical scenarios for patient care. And we are going to deliver a platform that students can access through their smartphones”, explains Gusmão.

Cultural challenges and expansion
Despite advances in the field of hybrid education, the CEO of MedRoom says that there is still a part of professionals that is very critical to the use of some technologies. At the end of the day, the union between technology and teaching is still far from ready.

To overcome cultural barriers — Gusmão says he has heard from doctors that ‘video games are not for teaching’ — the company focuses on gains that are easier to demonstrate, such as learning anatomy, a “keystone” of education of health.

“We used this strategy: taking advantage of the hype of virtual reality. Starting these products with virtual reality gets attention and has an instant impact. We had this discussion of what we need to build to show the value of putting technology in the health sector in a less risky way for doctors”, argues the founder of MedRoom.

KEYWORDS
Brazil, Latin America, Mexico, Startup, Technology

The Next Frontier For Healthcare: Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, And The Metaverse
Sai Balasubramanian, M.D., J.D.
Sai Balasubramanian, M.D., J.D.Contributor
Healthcare
I write about clinical medicine, innovation in healthcare, and health policy.
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For many years, healthcare delivery entailed the physical interaction between a patient and physician as a means to receive a diagnosis, medical treatment, or operative care. This changed slightly with the advent of telehealth, which delivered the patient-physician relationship through digital means and the internet.

But these paradigms are now at the cusp of an even larger, more monumental form of unprecedented disruption, as augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) are quickly bringing forth possibilities that were never previously imagined.

Earlier this year, I wrote about Microsoft Mesh, a “holoportation” and mixed reality platform that aims to make digital connections life-like and enable new ways to remotely teach, learn, and perform tasks virtually. This is in conjunction with Microsoft’s Hololens technology, which has already been explored in non-operative and surgical case-studies alike as a means to provide medical care remotely.

The innovation in this realm continues to grow rapidly. Take for example famous computer systems and chip designer NVIDIA, which has been an industry favorite for decades. The company has continued to demonstrate incredible innovation in all aspects— from gaming systems to advanced computing, NVIDIA is a visionary force. Now, the company is utilizing its trusted and tried infrastructure to invest in the “metaverse”—an alternate, digital reality of sorts that can provide rich, life-like interactions and experiences to users. This is a promising concept for healthcare, which thrives on interaction between the physician and the patient. NVIDIA is attempting to innovate in this space with its Omniverse platform— “an easily extensible, open platform built for virtual collaboration and real-time physically accurate simulation. Creators, designers, researchers, and engineers can connect major design tools, assets, and projects to collaborate and iterate in a shared virtual space.” The platform has already been adapted across multiple industries, including architecture and engineering, media and entertainment, manufacturing, and supercomputing, creating a strong foundation to leap into the healthcare industry.

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The idea of the metaverse has incredible potential, providing for an entirely new approach to interaction and human connection. Facebook’s recent transformation to “Meta” is an ode to the company’s foresight and vision that the metaverse is the next frontier in technological innovation. In fact, Facebook has been investing in virtual and augmented reality for years, slowly deciphering new ways to connect people and build interactive platforms. Even prior to redefining itself as Meta, the company indicated its commitment to this technology through its monumental acquisition of virtual reality company Oculus. Facebook/Meta has incredible potential to redefine healthcare, especially as it already has such a robust and proven social media infrastructure.

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Meta is moving fast with its AR/VR technology. Its latest video shows the company’s incredible progress with haptic glove technology, allowing the user to experience the sense of touch in the virtual world. The demonstration shows users interacting in the virtual space and even playing precision and dexterity heavy games such as jenga. The full video can be seen here, and a preview below:


Overall, these examples are only a few of the many working to revolutionize this space. Companies like Intuitive Surgical, which is famous for its robotic-assisted surgery system (the Da Vinci system) have incredible potential to move into virtual reality. Numerous other smaller companies are investing in niche pockets in the digital healthcare realm—whether it be to augment the telemedicine experience through AR/VR, or make other medical experiences more patient friendly and safe.

But there are key challenges that these companies will undoubtedly encounter. One major challenge will be to bridge the virtual world with the real. Numerous clinical trials and use-cases will have to be delved into to truly understand if and how this technology can be used safely for patient care. Another area of concern is the safety of patient data and information in the metaverse. As society becomes increasingly reliant on technology, there must be an emphasis on the concomitant numerous vulnerabilities and cybersecurity concerns. Finally, companies will have to address how this technology will be created in a way that is not only safe for the patient, but also caters to the humanistic aspects of medicine. After all, healthcare is not just about treating the symptoms—but additionally, is also about treating the person. While AR and VR technology hold incredible promise for healthcare, it must also be developed in a way that does not encroach upon or mitigate the sensitive, humanistic, and sacred patient-physician relationship that has long-defined healthcare.

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Sai Balasubramanian, M.D., J.D.
Sai Balasubramanian, M.D., J.D.
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I am a physician, speaker, and writer, focusing on the intersections of healthcare, digital innovation, and policy. I completed an M.D./ J.D.... Read M

Facebook’s Evolution Into ‘Meta’ Has Incredible Potential To Revolutionize Healthcare
Sai Balasubramanian, M.D., J.D.
Sai Balasubramanian, M.D., J.D.Contributor
Healthcare
I write about clinical medicine, innovation in healthcare, and health policy.
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Facebook has undoubtedly become a generation-defining phenomenon. For billions of people around the world, it redefined traditional notions of communication, connectivity, news gathering, e-commerce, and social interaction. Although the company started as purely a social media network, it evolved into something more: a cultural icon which represents the way people interact with each other, keep track of milestones in a local or national community, and perhaps even find and connect with others that have shared interests.

Facebook’s boldest move yet is its recent evolution and rebranding into “Meta,” which CEO Mark Zuckerberg formally announced earlier this week. Meta is an amalgamation of the company’s broader vision to help connect people alongside new and cutting-edge technology that will redefine social interaction. As the press release explains, “The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together — and do things together you couldn’t do in the physical world. It’s the next evolution in a long line of social technologies, and it’s ushering in a new chapter for our company.”

Indeed, the announcement of this evolution has been long-overdue; in the last few years, the company has invested significant time and capital into embracing new ways to communicate, especially in the augmented and virtual reality spaces. Meta is a culmination of these efforts, but is also a starting-stage for many more such innovations to come.

Facebook Unveils Meta
MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 28: Facebook debuts its new company brand, Meta, at their ... [+] GETTY IMAGES FOR FACEBOOK
Though there has been significant talk about how this technology will transform social interactions, gaming, and learning, there is another massive industry that the Metaverse could possible revolutionize: healthcare.

Broadly speaking, the company defines the Metaverse as “a set of interconnected digital spaces that lets you do things you can’t do in the physical world. Importantly, it’ll be characterized by social presence, the feeling that you’re right there with another person, no matter where in the world you happen to be.” This bodes a powerful sentiment for healthcare. The Metaverse unlocks all types of new potential applications in the realms of telehealth, virtual care, remote patient care and monitoring, data-driven care, etc. Especially if it can elevate virtual care from a 2d to a 3d experience, it may become a generation-defining revolution in medicine .

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Other innovation giants are already stepping into similar territory. Earlier this year, I wrote about how Microsoft’s Mesh platform is attempting to embrace mixed reality and how it may congruently disrupt healthcare. Industry stalwarts are investing billions of dollars in deciphering how augmented and virtual reality may allow for better, more personalized delivery of medicine, and possibly even mimic “physical presence,” one of the key limitations to telehealth modalities currently.

But Metaverse’s potential goes even further. Perhaps the connectivity which Metaverse proposes is not something that someone does, but rather, is something that one lives within. If the Metaverse, as proposed, becomes a new way to interact with friends, a new workplace to conduct business within, and a venue to possibly receive healthcare, perhaps it becomes a new reality—a place where people spend most of their time.

US-IT-TECH-FACEBOOK
Facebook employee Elza Uzmanoff tries out an Oculus device at the company's corporate headquarters ... [+] AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Facebook has already been working on Smart Glasses and its famous Oculus virtual reality platform—both of which may soon become as integral to a person’s body as a cellphone or smartwatch. Just 20 years ago, no one ever imagined that they would carry a phone or watch on their body nearly 24 hours a day that could count calories or detect heart rhythms—and yet, today, it has become a common facet of life. Similarly, if these connectivity devices indeed become integral to the everyday human experience, it has significant potential applications in the realm of healthcare. Some very basic examples include: remote monitoring of patients that require critical care; better data and insights into clinical outcomes (e.g. blood sugar monitoring, heart rhythm tracking, etc.); augmented tracking of physical health, virtually; and far more advanced applications that are even beyond the realm of current imagination.

Of course, this opens up an entire behemoth of questions and concerns regarding privacy, security, and patient safety. While the technology is promising and can significantly change the way medicine is practiced, how will the Metaverse ultimately safe-guard one of the most important aspects of healthcare: patient privacy and security? Indeed, with so much connectivity, significant vulnerabilities also potentially emerge, begging the question about what measures will be taken to ensure proper ethical cadence.

Finally, just because it can be done, the question remains—should it? Should there be such a push to transition healthcare so significantly into the digital and virtual spheres? Perhaps there are incredible benefits to be gained from this. But, if it isn’t done correctly, it may also pose a threat to the personalized nature of the patient-physician relationship. Indeed, amidst a push to embrace new innovation and technology, society cannot afford to lose the humanistic touch of healthcare.

Facebook’s (now Metaverse’s) leadership has a monumental task ahead of it in navigating and deciphering this new, exciting, and bold territory. Indeed, the applications for this technology are endless, especially with regards to medicine and the delivery of healthcare. Time will indeed tell if and how the company will be able to leverage this technology to augment healthcare in a safe, secure, and patient-centric manner.

The Age of Precision Wellness
Ushering in the Metaverse of Health.

Brett Bivens
Jun 18, 2020
19
2

We are living through a transformational shift in consumer demand that has been well underway for over a decade.

From: One-size fits all brands, media, and retailers leveraging scale for mass market reach.

To: Consumer-led innovation, catalyzed by "divine discontent", that forces companies to compete by redefining and personalizing the customer experience in real time to dynamically bundle entirely new systems of meaning for consumers.

When the paradigm is shifting, speed becomes a competitive advantage.

Companies capable of rapidly adjusting incentives, distribution models, and product features to meet consumers where they are have an edge they can compound over the long term.

Nowhere are the effects of this paradigm shift more pronounced than in the world of consumer wellness.

The emerging age of Precision Wellness, powered by the demands of the wellness-driven consumer, is fundamentally reshaping addressable markets, spurring innovation at the intersection of traditional industries, and creating massive opportunities for emerging companies building hyperpersonlized technology, communities, and experiences that improve human health, happiness, and opportunity.


The wellness-driven consumer is more informed, more principled, and in search of more lifestyle control than ever before and the impact this is having on the global economy is already well underway.

Wellness-related spend now accounts for over 5% of global economic activity, is growing at almost 2x the rate of the broader economy, and is increasingly integrated with every aspect of our day to day experience.

With global distribution platforms, more efficient business models, and emerging technologies breaking down many of the geographic barriers to reaching customers, companies are being built and scaled around the world to capture value from this dynamic market.

The Impact Gap
Despite increasing consumer spend and attention along with an incredible amount of capital poured into companies building for the wellness-driven consumer, there remains a massive impact gap.

64% of Americans want to lower healthcare costs but 80% don’t even meet minimum exercise requirements. This inactivity cost the US economy $28b in medical expenses and lost productivity.

Over 250 million people suffer from depression and anxiety and few have the holistic support to manage their condition effectively across work and personal contexts.

37.2 million people in the United States live in food insecure households.

In the United States, 19% of young people aged 2 to 19 years and 40% of adults have obesity, which puts them at risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. It is estimated that obesity costs the US healthcare system $147 billion a year.

Few people are equipped with the health literacy required to navigate the healthcare system, engage in a healthy lifestyle, and support friends and family seeking to do the same.

Statistics like these are simply the tip of the iceberg. As frustrating as it is to observe skyrocketing costs, stagnating healthspan, and uneven access, there is reason to remain optimistic — where there is a gap between attention and effectiveness, there is an opportunity for innovation.

I’d love to discuss this post with you on Twitter and hear about interesting things you have seen in the world of consumer wellness. Likes and retweets also help if you’re enjoying the post. 😉

Discuss this Post on Twitter →

The Rise of Precision Wellness
Understanding why this impact gap persists and how it might close requires us to take a look back at how the market has unfolded over the last decade and where it is headed over the next 10+ years.

To do this, we will apply a physical activity-centric lens to the market. Why?

It is large, growing, and impactful — Even small changes to a consumer's fitness and activity regimen can have a dramatic impact on health care costs, healthspan, and risk of disease and illness. Consumers have proven a willingness to spend to the tune of $100B+ per year in fitness, and multiples of that pursuing active lifestyles.

It exists largely outside of the health care and regulatory systems — Consumers are accustomed to paying out of pocket for physical activity-related products and services and bringing new solutions to market rarely requires FDA or other regulatory approval.

It represents the best wedge to scale into other categories and behaviors— Companies that build engaging physical activity experiences own valuable and hard to attain chunks of daily consumer attention and create a channel for expansion into areas like sleep, nutrition, and direct to consumer healthcare.


Using this perspective, I believe we can separate the trajectory of the market into three periods.

Generation I — Quantified Self and Boutique Wellness
2010 - 2015

The first generation of digital fitness and activity companies were largely focused on tracking what we were doing and required significant motivation and legwork from the consumer (quantified self obsessives) to drive any real value.

Counting our steps, calories, and miles yielded little in the way of actionable insight, and perhaps most importantly as Under Armour, Adidas, and many other corporates found out after making splashy acquisitions, provided no strong retention hook to keep users coming back over time.

Concurrently, SoulCycle and others following in its footsteps expanded rapidly during this period. While these companies nailed motivation and retention, they offered little in the way of digital engagement, remained accessible only to high income consumers, and have not reached internet scale.


Generation II — Content & Community
2015 - 2020

What Peloton understood with high quality videos featuring celebrity-like coaches and its SaaS plus a Box business model, or Zwift understood with its immersive multiplayer cycling game, or Strava understood with its vertical community focused on tapping the competitive nature of every athlete, is that without a strong reason for users to keep coming back to the product, value is capped. This is borne out in the valuations we see today relative to the companies that came before.

These insights, combined with ubiquitous mobile penetration and global distribution platforms (iOS/Android) have also opened up the international opportunity for companies based all around the world — Keep in China, Cure.Fit in India, Gympass in Brazil, and Freeletics in Germany.

What's more, all of the leaders from this generation remain independent and have the potential to grow massively as we move into the next decade and the next era of the market.


Generation III — Precision Wellness
About a decade ago, Marc Andreessen coined the term “software is eating the world” to frame the paradigm shift occurring in the global economy. A similarly massive opportunity exists for Precision Wellness companies aiming to take a major bite out of the Digital Health market.

With passive and more accurate monitoring paired with smarter algorithms employed to drive precision treatment and nutrition along with the ability to use AI to provide a 1:1 experience at global scale, we will see companies start to cut significantly into the $68b of global productivity loss directly attributable to lack of exercise, help the 163m Europeans who experienced activity limiting musculoskeletal pain in the last week (*raises hand* 🤕), and enable equitable access to solutions that positively impact consumer health and happiness.

The Precision Wellness opportunity is as big as it gets, and companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon know internet scale opportunities when they see them. Each of these three companies have approached the health and wellness market aggressively and in ways that leverage their respective strengths.

Apple building HealthOS via the Health App and Apple Watch and realizing Tim Cook's ambitious mission of making health Apple's greatest contribution to mankind.

Google furthering its Ambient Computing vision by acquiring Fitbit (and the data from almost 30 million users) to build its own integrated family of hardware and accelerate the nascent market.

Amazon expanding its "Everything Store" mantra to health, ambitiously tackling the market end to end — from redefining the pharmacy through its Pillpack acquisition to its healthcare joint venture with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase to the opportunity to bundle health and wellness-related offerings into Prime.

Together with emerging companies featuring deep technology at the core (Whoop, Tonal, Pivot, Oura, and Future.Fit are examples) and the market leaders mentioned in the section above, there has never been more attention or capital aimed at reshaping consumer health and wellness.


Onward to the Metaverse (of Health)
Every one of the companies highlighted above is competing to go both horizontal by serving consumers across categories and vertical by injecting themselves at the rock, sand, and water levels of consumer attention for a given category.

This competition creates "liquidity" for consumers seeking solutions and brings us closer to a holistic health and wellness experience that is more immersive, collaborative, responsive, contextual, and accessible.

In effect, we are racing towards the Metaverse of Health.

If you are not familiar with the concept of the Metaverse, I recommend reading this analysis by Matthew Ball. As you will see there and in other perspectives, the Metaverse tends to be very closely tied today to gaming.

However, as Ball notes in his piece, the idea of it being a successor to the internet means that "the Metaverse has become the newest macro-goal for many of the world’s tech giants". Thus, any market opportunity central to the strategies of the world’s tech giants — like health and wellness — is de facto on the Metaverse roadmap.

In his piece, Ball lists seven key attributes of the Metaverse. As I will describe below, the foundations underlying the emergence of the Metaverse are also critical elements of what will allow companies to more effectively meet the wellness needs of the global marketplace and propel us into a healthier future.

With the centrality of both health and the Metaverse to the long term strategies of all of the tech giants and the same enabling technologies driving innovation in both areas, these two roads are merging quickly.

Be persistent
Highly accurate, passive biometric tracking to fill in the longitudinal data gaps that exist for consumers between interactions with health and wellness support professionals.

Be synchronous
Real time access to care providers, coaches, and community to enable highly contextual communication and drive more informed decision-making.

Have no real cap to concurrent participations with an individual sense of “presence”
Fully immersive health & wellness experiences available to the mass market that are both hyper-personalized and highly collaborative.

Be a fully functioning economy
Development of digital labor and support access marketplaces featuring transparent costs and seamless transactions.

Be an experience that spans both the digital and physical worlds, private and public networks/experiences, and open and closed platforms
Augmenting physical activity (working out, shopping, eating, working) with a digital support infrastructure and smarter environmental and contextual sensing in our day to day environment.

Offer unprecedented interoperability of data, assets, content, and experiences
Seamless identity solutions, dynamic health records incorporating persistent data gathering, holistic support across personal and professional context with requisite privacy considerations.

Be populated by “content” and “experiences” created and operated by an incredibly wide range of contributors
Consumer to consumer collaboration fostering community and driving increased engagement and retention, expanding the market for who is empowered to be a health and wellness creator or expert.

These descriptions — each opening up billions of dollars of market opportunity — represent the first order impacts of the onset of Precision Wellness. The second order effects waiting around the corner are harder to identify a priori but have the potential to create orders of magnitude more positive impact over time.

In thinking about this opportunity, "over time" is important to keep top of mind. The Metaverse of Health, just like the broader Metaverse, isn't a fully immersive world we suddenly arrive in one day. Instead, it is likely that over the next decade we will primarily experience it as an emergent layer on top of the physical world that dynamically builds upon itself over time — an improved extension of the digital health and wellness experiences on offer today that, while not all encompassing, become increasingly present.

The opportunities to create value in the coming Metaverse of Health are endless, but so are the risks and societal downsides.

Is it possible to create immersive, personalized, always-on experiences that make use healthier while at the same time respecting privacy?

How do we avoid compounding the racial, gender, and socio economic biases that exist in the healthcare system and wellness market today and create a truly inclusive generation of better, cheaper faster solutions?

Can we establish the right type of educational infrastructure (that we've failed at miserably thus far) and create consumer literacy across both health and technology?

The big tech companies have a head start in the race to win the Metaverse of Health — millions of users, substantial R&D budgets, top down commitment, and incredible solutions already in the market. But their collective track record on the more complex societal issues tied to Precision Wellness are, to put it generously, checkered.

To paraphrase William Gibson, the future of Precision Wellness is already here, but only on iPhones, wrists, and apartment floors located in the world's most expensive zip codes.

Reaching the Metaverse of Health requires broader distribution made possible by a more inclusive form of progress. Customer-centric early stage companies unburdened by mixed incentives or misaligned business models have a unique opportunity to pull this healthier future forward.

Healthcare in Metaverse
Mudassir Hussain
Mudassir Hussain
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Nov 14 · 4 min read





Imagining the future

Photo by Richard Horvath on Unsplash
Mark Zukerberg with his simple style walks into metaverse and explains it with passion, excitement and commitment. The hour-long video on youtube is seen by more than 2.5 Million viewers up till now. The subject has become a topic of discussion with experts taking their sides of arguments in favour of against the idea.
The concept of the metaverse is not new, it was first coined in the 1992 novel Snow crash by Neal Stephensen. It's just someone has officially committed to pursuing it as a company. With technology making leaps forward, the idea now appears to be transformable into reality. As Mark Zuckerberg mentions in his video a lot of technology to achieve the goal of the metaverse is yet to be developed. However, this seems to be a possibility in near future.
As a health care provider, I wonder what it would change if we lived in the metaverse in terms of health care provision. It will certainly change a lot. From patterns of disease, to how we diagnose and treat them, everything might change for us and our patients. We don't know with certainty, but we can guess how it will be living in a metaverse for a physician or a patient.
Patient-doctor interactions
Traditionally, a patient has to visit the doctor in person for several important reasons. First, he has to narrate his problem that is cross-questioned by the doctor to understand and fix it. Second, the doctor has to examine i.e. touch the patient body to understand the physical attributes of the problem. Thirdly, the doctor would prescribe some more investigations if he feels like that are to be done on the material body of the patient such as blood tests or imaging scans.
Tele-health has been trying to make doctor-patient interaction more virtual. The conversation part of the interaction is possible on video-conferencing, however, the examination and investigations part is not possible at all. The only alternative is to have someone stay with the patient in real-time. He or She needs to examine the patient and perform investigations to make the whole interaction more meaningful.
In a metaverse, the problem will be easier to resolve. With the promise of physically feeling and sensing the presence of a human being, the doctor-patient interaction might be much more real in metaverse than it is today with available technology. Further advancement in Virtual and Augmented reality might make invasive investigations obsolete. By scanning the whole body or testing a few ml of blood, the process of diagnosis will be completed much more efficiently. This might one day replace the need for a doctor to do the job.
Fewer physical injury cases
If you are living in a metaverse, your physical self is supposed to stay at a constant place while you room around in virtual reality. This means that your body movement will be reduced several-fold to what it is today. Such reduction implies that you will be less exposed to mechanical injuries such as road traffic accidents and possible violence on the streets. In short, it will be less likely to get physically injured in a metaverse and therefore surgeons around the world who manage such patients might be forced to look for new jobs.
Fewer infections
Similarly, limited moving around means lesser chances of acquiring infectious diseases such as Flu, Covid or SARS. We know that infections are a major part of hospital workload and cause significant ill effects on the well being of patients. The endemic infections will be easier to control and epidemics might become rare.
More obesity
Reduction in movement will not be without a cost. In the second half of the last century, the advent of the modern sedentary lifestyle has given birth to several new health related problems collectively known as Metabolic syndrome. These include disease of the heart, blood vessels, obesity, diabetes and much more. All of these are linked to changing patterns of food we consume and the sedentary life we spend. Metaverse is going to augment the epidemic of metabolic syndrome and related health issues that is already affecting 30% of the US population.
More mental-health issues
Living in a metaverse is going to be more solitary than ever. If you could do the majority of your chores from a comfortable seat at home, why move around out in the potentially dangerous neighbourhood. They say that the virtual meetings with friends will feel real but still hanging out in person is going to be missed. This might end up leading us to more mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety and bipolar disorders. Our self-image will completely change in the form of an avatar and the image of others will be different in the real and virtual worlds. How our brains will react to such drastic evolution in our social reality cannot be predicted with surety. Most, however, believe that it's not going to be a welcome reception.
Whatever the consequences of metaverse are going to be, it seems that it's coming. Predicting how it will change our working and living environment is difficult but a glimpse of it can be imagined. Each service provider domain will have its own set of issues and benefits with the technology. Getting involved in the discussion, exploring its potential uses and making it safe for us is the sole thing we can do at this point in time.

Taking Healthcare Into the Metaverse

Patrice Bergman点击此处，查看Patrice Bergman的职业档案
Patrice Bergman
Vice President and General Manager, Individual and Family Plans at Blue Shield of California
发布日期: 2021 年 10 月 12 日
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Taking Healthcare Into the Metaverse

By Patrice Bergman, Blue Shield of California

Vice President and General Manager, Individual and Family Plans

 The term ‘metaverse’ has been floating around a lot lately, especially with Facebook’s announcement last month that it plans to transition from being a social media company to be a metaverse company.

 The concept of the metaverse is far from new. It was coined by science fiction author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash. The metaverse was his name for the convergence of physical reality and virtual space. More recently, the metaverse has come to refer to a range of virtual experiences, environments, and assets. As a parent, my teens’ interest in immersive online games like Fortnight and Roblox, in which players build their own worlds, really opened my eyes to the idea of the metaverse. While I don’t understand the allure of spending real money to deck out my online avatar, the ability to do so while celebrating a battle royale victory with teammates halfway across the world or while screaming like a crazed fan-girl at an exclusive online Harry Styles concert sounds thrilling!

 But the metaverse isn’t limited to the gaming arena. If you own some crypto or you’ve used a digital avatar at a work meeting or virtual event, you’ve dipped your toes into the metaverse. While the metaverse is still in its infancy, I believe it holds tremendous potential to transform healthcare. Here are a few examples of how virtual and augmented reality are improving care and helping train tomorrow’s healthcare providers.

 Improving the quality of life for dementia patients. A small study showed that virtual reality (VR) helped dementia patients who experience poor memory and confusion and display aggression toward family and caregivers. The study equipped each patient with a VR headset to “visit” one of five virtual environments, including a cathedral and a sandy beach. After 16 monitored sessions, researchers found that VR helped these patients retrieve old memories, which improved mood and provided positive mental stimulation.

 Guiding new mothers with breastfeeding. A study conducted with the Australian Breastfeeding Association equipped new mothers with eyewear from Google Glass, enabling telephone counselors to observe and provide guidance while the moms breastfed at home. The technology helped the new mothers get expert help throughout the day - all in the comfort of their homes.

 Augmenting medical data for better visualization. Intravenous injections and blood draws can be unpleasant when it’s difficult to find a vein and the patient has to be stuck several times. Technology from medical start-up Accuvein projects a map of the patient’s veins onto the skin, making it easier for providers to find the vein the first time.

 Providing hands-on learning experiences for medical students. Medical schools are beginning to incorporate augmented reality (AR) into the curriculum to provide students with valuable hands-on learning opportunities. With AR, programs can simulate patient and surgical encounters, allowing medical students to visualize and practice techniques during training.

 The future of the metaverse

I’m still wrapping my Gen X brain around the idea of the metaverse. Admittedly, I have concerns about society spending time in a virtual world and the repercussions of leaving reality behind.

But I’m also legitimately excited by the positive impact the metaverse could have. I see its potential to be an expansion of the physical world rather than a substitute for it. I can imagine the possibilities for helping help people connect in new ways. And as a healthcare professional, I can envision unlimited ways in which the metaverse and related technologies like AR and VR might transform and improve healthcare.

 How do you see the concept of the metaverse playing out? Will it be limited to virtual hangouts and games or do you think it has the potential to improve our lives? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Introducing the healthcare metaverse
By Dr Paddy BarrettNovember 29, 2021 | 0 
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Traditional healthcare institutions won’t have a choice on whether they embrace new technologies.

Facebook, one of the largest technology companies on the planet, recently changed its name to ‘Meta’, signifying its aspiration to become the ultimate ‘Metaverse’ company of the future.
But what is the metaverse? What will it mean for society in general and, more specifically, how might it alter the world of healthcare? Let’s start with what the metaverse is not. The metaverse is not virtual reality, nor is it simply connecting with others in a virtual world.

Using a primitive modem and an internet relay chat (IRC) I was able to explore a virtual world and communicate online with others in the early 90s. Virtual reality wasn’t yet widely available but most of the building blocks were in place. This was not the metaverse, because the metaverse is not a place or a technology.

The metaverse is a time.It is a time when we spend more time immersed in a digital world than the real world.Do I think it is wise to spend more time absorbed in a digital world rather than the real one? No, I don’t.

But what I think doesn’t really matter.What matters is the direction of travel of history. We must simply do our best to understand what the metaverse means for us and how we relate to it in the future. Don’t think we are already at the cusp of being in the metaverse?

Have a look at the screen time app on your phone. You are probably reading this on your phone or tablet right now. The average smart phone user interacts with their phone for almost five and a half hours per day. For the adults among us, we probably spend another several hours on Zoom calls or sending emails. For our kids, that time is likely spent on a gaming console.

Don’t think we are in the metaverse yet? The 1985 Live Aid concert was one of the largest live performances ever held, with almost 162,000 people in attendance across the UK and USA. In 2020, the Chinese group TFBoys held a virtual concert with 786,000 global paying attendees. The shared reality game Roblox currently has 164 million users worldwide and even has its own digital currency that has a real-world value.

Experiences and items in the digital world are taking on the same significance as those in the real world.
Don’t believe me?

The artist Beeple sold a selection of his digital artwork for almost $70 million earlier this year. This is a collection of artworks that you physically cannot touch and only exists in the digital realm. As the famed venture capitalist Marc Andreesson said, “software is going to eat the world”, and healthcare will not be spared that fate.

The healthcare metaverse is not simply about virtual consultations. We all embraced that at the height of the Covid pandemic last year and are aware of its limitations. But remember, this is only the beginning.The current technology stack is akin to using the very first iPhone, which I bought in New York in 2009 and had to solder the sim card to trick it into thinking it was a US phone and manually code the software to make it function on an Irish network; not pretty, but it worked.

This is where digital health is today; a clunky patchwork quilt of semi useful technologies that in general work, but the overall experience is suboptimal. This is going to change much faster than you think. That is because we are linear thinkers and technology changes on an exponential basis. Remember, in 2008, no one had a smartphone.Today’s digital health is the Nokia 3310 equivalent.

Currently, the average age of clinicians and patients is over 50 years of age, not exactly digital technology natives.However, my 10-month-old can already interact with a smartphone, will likely attend an increasing number of concerts virtually and when his time comes will undoubtedly want to avail of his healthcare where possible in a digital format and pay for it in a digital cryptocurrency. But healthcare systems are still using technology from the 1980s, they will never catch up I hear you say. Who said consumers of healthcare will be reliant on legacy healthcare systems and won’t simply choose to interface with the solutions that serve them best?

Traditional healthcare institutions won’t be given a choice as to whether they embrace these technologies.They will either have to adapt or get left behind. With almost 50 per cent of clinicians burning out in these legacy systems and with employment contracts that appear less and less appealing, there will be no shortage of highly skilled clinicians looking for an alternative form of work.

Patients and clinicians will vote with their feet; they are already. The users and providers of healthcare will become a global mix and there is no reason why an Irish diabetic won’t choose to see their clinician in Hong Kong and Irish doctors won’t chose to work for a digital healthcare group in Singapore, but base themselves in Galway, or even the South of France.

Yes, there will be a residual need for a physical footprint for many of these services, but much of it will move into the metaverse, for patients, clinicians, and healthcare institutions alike. In many ways, the metaverse is already here. We are just at the very early days of it, where the user experience and interfaces are subpar, but its exponential change will radically alter almost everything about how we live our lives, and in healthcare it will be no different.

The question is are you ready?
If not, I suggest you ask your kids for some help.

Treatment Announces Global Medical Metaverse
November 04, 2021 09:00 ET | Source: Treatment.com International Inc.




...
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 04, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Treatment.com International Inc. (“Treatment or the “Company”) (CSE: TRUE • OTC: TREIF • 939.F) is a healthcare technology company with a passion for supporting consumers and health care providers globally with easy, AI-driven solutions.

Today, Treatment is announcing its plan to build our groundbreaking global “Medical Metaverse”. The Medical Metaverse will become Treatment’s roadmap for current and future customers. Combining our rapidly expanding Global Library of Medicine and AI technologies, this new Medical Metaverse will integrate with emerging artificial reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) environments, such as Meta’s (aka Facebook’s) new metaverse efforts, connecting providers, patients, and partners.

Treatment will begin by providing our global team of medical professionals with an integrated VR/AR environment to dramatically accelerate Global Library of Medicine expansion. This expanded and enhanced medical information dataset will provide unparalleled AI support for consumer medical applications, as well as outstanding support for clinical decision support and medical education.

Engaging its medical providers within virtual, immersive, and collaborative on-line environments enhances interdisciplinary collaboration across Treatment’s existing global team of medical professionals, promotes better medical understanding, and assures more equitable access to medical knowledge.

The Company also intends to enhance its medical education solutions with AR/VR to allow medical schools to train students using creative and engaging environments regardless of geopolitical boundaries or the limitations of existing medical resources.

“In our journey to change global healthcare based on the unique nature of the Treatment platform, this new medical metaverse will redefine global telehealth and healthcare in general. We will be able to provide an entirely new global care team approach. Imagine engaging top doctors in their field in an instant for one disease state. Or using intelligent avatars representing your care team for all conditions, globally and instantly. Although we are in the early design phase, medical doctors, wellness practitioners and other healthcare professionals are excited about experiencing the healthcare metaverse and providing a level of care never imagined before,” says Dr. Paul A. Markham, Chief Strategy Officer, Treatment.

“I agree with recent comments by Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta/Facebook, that the next generation of the Internet will not be delivered via that tiny screen you hold in your hand,” said Mr. John Fraser, CEO and co-founder of Treatment. “We share his vision of immersive, open and creative on-line environments that will quickly attract patients, providers and developers, to deliver incredibly smart medical care to everyone.”

About Treatment.com

Treatment.com is a disruptive healthcare technology company that is harnessing the power of AI to help global citizens improve their health through personalized recommendations and insights. Based in Vancouver with a US subsidiary, the company spent the last five years working with a team of world-class doctors, engineers, mathematicians, and AI specialists to develop a complex AI engine that leverages the most robust, personalized data to generate highly predictive and accurate insights. Treatment Mobile is a soon to be released intelligent digital health assistant which will empower people to take control of their health through an innovative mobile app, powered by Treatment’s exclusive AI engine.

For more investor information on Treatment.com please visit https://treatment.com/investors/.

Forward Looking Statement

This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the future operations of Treatment.com, International, Inc. (Treatment) and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding the future plans and objectives of Treatment, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Treatment's expectations include other risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by Treatment with securities regulators.

The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Treatment. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and Treatment will only update or revise publicly the included forward-looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities law.


Virtual Reality in Healthcare
Virtual Reality is set to revolutionise the Healthcare industry.
At Visualise, we’ve worked with some of the biggest names in the medical & pharmaceutical industries to create a range of VR experiences. We’ve seen a huge increase in the use of VR in the healthcare sector and continue to be fascinated & impressed by the different applications our clients are requesting.

From developing new life-saving techniques to training the doctors of the future, VR has a multitude of applications for health and healthcare, from the clinical to the consumer. And by 2020, the global market could be worth upwards of $3.8 billion. Below, we discuss some of the ways Virtual Reality is being used to train & support healthcare professionals, change lives and heal patients.

Medical training
Patient treatment
Medical marketing
Disease awareness

Teaching surgery in VR

Medical Training
Virtual Reality has the ability to transport you inside the human body – to access & view areas that otherwise would be impossible to reach. Currently, medical students learn on cadavers, which are difficult to get hold of and (obviously) do not react in the same way a live patient would. In VR however, you can view minute detail of any part of the body in stunning 360° CGI reconstruction & create training scenarios which replicate common surgical procedures.

Medical Realities is one of the companies pioneering the use of Virtual Reality to deliver high-quality surgical training. They film real life surgery in 4K 360° video from multiple angles which is then combined with CGI models of the anatomy being operated on to provide an immersive & interactive training experience.


Visualising the brain in VR

Treatment
Patient Education

The ability to view the inside of the human body in Virtual Reality is not only useful for doctors, but also for patients. VR allows patients to be taken through their surgical plan by virtually stepping into a patient-specific 360° VR reconstruction of their anatomy & pathology. The result – enhanced understanding of the treatment, and consequently higher patient satisfaction.

Robotic Surgery

Robotic surgery is a recent innovation in which surgery is performed using a robotic device, e.g. robotic arm which is controlled by a human surgeon. This means fewer risks of complications during surgery and a faster procedure. The robotic device is accurate, meaning smaller incisions, reduced blood loss and faster recovery.

Mental Health & Psychological Therapy

VR’s unique ability to transport you somewhere else can be used to create powerful simulations of the scenarios in which psychological difficulties occur. No longer does a therapist need to accompany a client on a trip to a crowded shopping centre, for example, or up a tall building. Situations that are impractical or impossible to recreate — flying, for example, or the harrowing events that can lie behind PTSD — can be conjured at the click of a mouse. The in-situ coaching that’s so effective for so many disorders can now be delivered in the consulting room, with the simulations graded in difficulty and repeated as often as necessary.

VR has also been used to curb memory loss, help autistic children in the classroom and gather data for dementia research.

Pain Management & Physical Therapy

VR’s healing capabilities aren’t just limited to psychological issues, but have been proved to work for pain management & physical treatment too. A study by the University of Washington Seattle and the UW Harborview Burn Centre showed that full VR immersion for those undergoing physical therapy after a skin graft acted as a distraction and subsequently reduced pain levels for the patients. VR for physical therapy has also been shown to be effective in speeding up recovery time. Allowing the patient to do their prescribed daily exercises in a virtual environment makes the activity more fun, keeps the patient focused, and helps them keep their spirits up during what can be a long recovery period.


VR is being used for physical therapy

Medical Marketing
Marketing was the most popular initial application of VR across all industries, and it continues to be an extremely powerful & effective marketing tool. We recently created a VR experience for Bayer (which we can’t talk about unfortunately) to advertise a new product of theirs, and GlaxoSmithKline built VR into the core of its “The Migraine Experience” campaign. In the experience, migraine sufferers selected the symptoms of their migraine and then handed the VR headset over to their non-migraine-sufferer partner to experience a migraine first-hand, albeit without the pain. The headset replicated some of the effects of a migraine, including blind spots, auras, sensitivity to light, thumping headache, and disorientation. GSK worked with migraine experts and technology VR experts on the campaign. GSK also released an app version, so that anyone can download it at home and trial the experience on their smartphone.



Disease Awareness
Pharmaceutical research & development company AbbVie created an experience to raise awareness amongst healthcare professionals of the daily struggle of patients suffering from Parkinsons disease. The experience was demo-ed at a pharmaceutical industry trade show where people could put on a headset and experience first hand as a Parkinsons sufferer navigates a virtual supermarket, encountering awkward moments when coming into contact with other people.


The AbbVie Parkinson's experience

The Future of VR in Healthcare
A lot of the applications mentioned above are still in their infancy (the same could be said for VR as a whole). In the coming years, VR will be used more and more to improve the accuracy & effectiveness of current procedures, and enhance the capabilities of the human being, both as the care-giver and the patient. Quite simply, the potential for VR in the healthcare sector is huge, limited only by the creativity & ingenuity of those creating and applying the technology.

If you’d like to discuss how we can bring your Virtual Reality Healthcare project to life, please get in touch below.

Crypto Docs NFTs from Ultimaxx Health's Symbiotic Marketplace: Bringing The Medical Field To The Blockchain Metaverse
New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - November 21, 2021) - Crypto Docs NFT will be the first collection to blend the medical field and technology onto the Ethereum Blockchain in a digital metaverse through their joint venture with Ultimaxx Health Inc. The digital Metaverse is a concept that has been taking over our society recently. Companies and talented individuals are finding new ways to innovate and bring groundbreaking real-world utility to the blockchain. The blockchain has also become an option for transforming and improving the way society performs business operations in different fields and it has positively changed many sectors in our everyday society, allowing new ideas to emerge and solve existing problems.

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Crypto Docs NFT

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Crypto Docs NFT TM aims to pioneer the concept of utilizing the metaverse to improve the medical field and, therefore, the humanity that relies on it. Crypto Docs NFT intends to complement the Symbiotic ecosystem, an upcoming blockchain marketplace founded by the CEO of Ultimaxx Health Dr. Lenny Lomax. You can read and learn more about Symbiotic and Ultimaxx Health below to fully understand the ecosystem in which Crypto Docs NFTs will thrive.

Ultimaxx Health is an early stage pharmaceutical company dedicated to research, development and commercialization of plant-based medicines and clinically validated natural products. Symbiotic is a bi-product of Ultimaxx Health, combining medicine with technology to form a blockchain marketplace to promote natural products and pharmaceutical research. With the emergence of blockchain technology, the company has decided to utilize these tools to build its own medical metaverse and increase its reach and abilities to help individuals worldwide access the benefits it offers. Benefits of Symbiotic on the blockchain include added layers of security, being able to deploy complex product marketing and trials in only a few hours, being able to build trial studies quicker and more efficiently, the ability to connect to legacy healthcare systems and better client-doctor engagement tools.

Symbiotic is currently creating this decentralized medical blockchain marketplace on the Ethereum blockchain, where individuals can use their platform's official token $SYM to interact with it, receive benefits, and make purchases. Symbiotic a product of Ultimaxx Health, a real-world nutraceutical plant-based supplement brand and the face behind creating the Crypto Docs NFT project.

In simpler terms, one can consider the Crypto Docs NFT project as their ticket to this revolutionary marketplace. Each Crypto Doc will provide the holders with certain benefits, including gifted $SYM tokens, privileges on the platform with the company along with the community, and exclusive access to upcoming activities and future drops, which includes an innovative digital "serum" NFT called Shield that will interact with the original Crypto Docs NFTs. This digital asset will act quite similarly to the real-life Shield supplement Ultimaxx Health is launching in mid 2022. Shield will be one of the first plant-based nutraceuticals to be sold on the Symbiotic Marketplace.

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Crypto Docs NFT

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Not only is Crypto Docs NFT an integral and revolutionary new project consisting of 10,000 unique, authentically hand-drawn assets in the form of crypto doctors, but it is the key that will help establish a whole new metaverse that generates and contributes to innovation in the medical field. It will change the way we interact with it and benefit from it as individuals all around the world.

There will be more information released as the project inches closer to its minting date in January 2022. In the meantime individuals can join the community discord for Crypto Docs here to stay in the loop. Individuals can also check out the official website here, the Crypto Docs twitter here, and the Symbiotic website here. Join the project in its quest to change the medical metaverse and help improve humanity with this revolutionary new approach to managing health and promoting advanced natural treatment options and dedicated research trials.
Who's building the metaverse?
By Elizabeth Culliford





4 minute read
An avatar of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen carrying a U.S. flag while riding a hydrofoil in the "Metaverse" during a live-streamed virtual and augmented reality conference . Facebook/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
Visitors are pictured in front of an immersive art installation titled "Machine Hallucinations — Space: Metaverse" by media artist Refik Anadol, which will be converted into NFT and auctioned online at Sotheby's, at the Digital Art Fair, in Hong Kong, China September 30, 2021. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo 
An avatar of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen carrying a U.S. flag while riding a hydrofoil in the "Metaverse" during a live-streamed virtual and augmented reality conference . Facebook/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo


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Visitors are pictured in front of an immersive art installation titled "Machine Hallucinations — Space: Metaverse" by media artist Refik Anadol, which will be converted into NFT and auctioned online at Sotheby's, at the Digital Art Fair, in Hong Kong, China September 30, 2021. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo



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Nov 1 (Reuters) - Facebook (FB.O) changed its name last week to Meta Platforms Inc to signal its focus on the metaverse, which it thinks will be the successor to the mobile internet.

The metaverse broadly refers to the idea of a shared virtual platform that people can access through different devices and where they can move through digital environments. read more

Well before Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's splashy demos featuring giant robots and digital time travels to ancient Rome, dozens of companies were crafting the software and hardware that could be used for this "Ready Player One" future.

The concept, which could be more than a decade away from being fully realized, will take cooperation among tech giants. In June, investment firm Roundhill Investments created an exchange traded fund (ETF) to track and profit from the work of the metaverse enablers. Hours before Facebook announced its rebrand, another firm launched its own metaverse ETF.

Here are a few of companies playing a role:

ROBLOX

Video game platform Roblox Corporation (RBLX.N), which went public this year, envisions the metaverse as a place where "people can come together within millions of 3D experiences to learn, work, play, create and socialize."

Roblox aims to give users and developers ways to create digital worlds. Its CEO has also talked about future shopping and conducting business on the platform, which has its own virtual economy powered by its Robux currency.

MICROSOFT

Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O)'s CEO Satya Nadella in an earnings call this year said the company was working to build an "enterprise metaverse" as the digital and physical worlds converge in its offerings.

Microsoft, which owns Xbox and the world-building game Minecraft, is also a key player in the gaming world. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has talked about planning for "a metaverse or mixed-reality construct."

FACEBOOK

Facebook, which will start trading as Meta Platforms on Dec 1, has said it wants to be seen as a metaverse company rather than a social media one. The tech giant, which has about 3 billion users, has been investing heavily in augmented and virtual reality and has been building out its VR environment Horizon, accessed through its Quest headsets.

NVIDIA

Computer chip maker Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) built its Omniverse platform for connecting 3D worlds into a shared virtual universe. It says Omniverse, which is used for projects like creating simulations of real-world buildings and factories, is the "plumbing" on which metaverses could be built.

UNITY

Unity Software Inc (U.N), which develops software used to design video games, is another company that could sell tools or technology used to build the metaverse.

SNAP

Snapchat owner Snap Inc (SNAP.N) has long been building custom avatars and augmented reality filters to overlay digital features on the real world. This year it unveiled its first true augmented reality glasses, available for developers to experiment with creating experiences for the spectacles.

AUTODESK

Cloud software firm Autodesk (ADSK.O) makes programs used by architects and engineers to design and create buildings and products. Its software is also used to build virtual worlds for gaming and entertainment.

TENCENT

Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd (0700.HK) is the world's largest video gaming firm by revenue and has stakes in major game studios like Epic Games and Activision Blizzard. The South China Morning Post reported this year that Tencent has registered many metaverse-related trademarks for its social site QQ.

EPIC GAMES

Epic is the company behind video game phenomenon Fortnite, which has moved beyond its core shooting game to social experiences like dance parties and virtual music concerts. Users pay to dress their avatars in different costumes and can build their own islands and games. Epic also owns a large gaming engine, Unreal, used to develop games and other visual effects like TV show backdrops.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, a vocal critic of big platforms like Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Alphabet Inc's Google (GOOGL.O), has argued the metaverse will need to be a participatory, common space.

AMAZON

Ecommerce giant Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), which is the world's largest cloud services vendor and has multiple media offerings, is also seen as a potential player in the metaverse.

Microsoft Mesh: A New “Holoportation” & Mixed Reality Platform That May Disrupt Healthcare
Sai Balasubramanian, M.D., J.D.
Sai Balasubramanian, M.D., J.D.Contributor
Healthcare
I write about clinical medicine, innovation in healthcare, and health policy.
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Mixed Reality, Holoportation, Holographics— terms once only used by sci-fi enthusiasts referring to a futuristic utopia, are now becoming reality.

Microsoft Mesh, the company’s new “Mixed Reality” Platform, is a cutting edge medium that is attempting to make these concepts real.

Microsoft describes the platform as a means to:

“Feel Presence: Connect with new depth and dimension. Engage with eye contact, facial expressions, and gestures. Your personality shines as technology fades away.”
“Experience Together: Digital intelligence comes to the real world. See, share, and collaborate on persistent 3D content. This common understanding ignites ideas, sparks creativity, and forms powerful bonds.”
“Connect from Anywhere: Enjoy the freedom to access Mesh on HoloLens 2, VR headsets, mobile phones, tablets, or PCs – using any Mesh-enabled app.”
One of the main benefits of such a robust and flexible platform will be the potential for virtual collaboration, as “co-workers [can] duplicate the serendipity of in-person learning – without the time and cost of travel – thanks to holoportation, holographic sharing, and visualization.”

Jennifer Langston explores this new platform extensively in a piece for Microsoft Innovation Stories. She refers to Microsoft Technical Fellow Alex Kipman’s thoughts: “This has been the dream for mixed reality, the idea from the very beginning […] You can actually feel like you’re in the same place with someone sharing content or you can teleport from different mixed reality devices and be present with people even when you’re not physically together.”

Alex Kipman unveils the product in the video below:


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The technology’s robust use-cases seem to have caught the attention of well-known figures in the technology and media industries, including filmmaker James Cameron and Cirque du Soleil’s co-founder, Guy Laliberté.


Furthermore, the potential applications of this technology in the healthcare industry are endless. The novel holoportation and holographic tools may enable new avenues in medical education, execution of complex procedures, and healthcare delivery.

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I wrote in a previous article how Microsoft is already using its advanced Hololens technology to enable surgeons across the globe to share real-time expertise with each other in performing procedures. Now, the added features of Microsoft Mesh may provide a new level of potential collaboration.

Medical education is also another area that may be able to leverage this technology, given how notoriously challenging it is and the sheer volume of information that trainees must be able to digest. Furthermore, the very nature of learning medicine often requires advanced visuospatial perception—whether it be for assessing organ placement during surgery, or for more theoretical uses, such as understanding physiology at a cellular level.

As Langston states in her article, “Engineering or medical students learning about electric car engines or human anatomy could gather as avatars around a holographic model and remove parts of the engine or peel back muscles to see what’s underneath. Colleagues could simply get together and chat in a shared virtual space, or companies could use Microsoft Mesh-enabled apps to offer virtual all-hands meetings or trainings to employees around the world.”           


Microsoft Mesh may also potentially cause significant disruption to the telehealth industry. Though telehealth itself is not an entirely new concept, the industry has seen a meteoric rise in demand and use in recent years, especially fueled by a new focus on convenience and pandemic-driven initiatives for social distancing. Mesh may be able to augment healthcare interactions, though the platform will have to navigate how best to actually tackle this notoriously-challenging piece in a way that does not compromise the patient-physician experience.

Indeed, there is still much more work yet to be done in streamlining and perfecting this technology. However, Mesh’s platform has massive potential to be integrated in a variety of applications and industries. Especially for healthcare, if the platform can be developed in a way that is user-friendly, upholds the highest measures required for patient safety, integrates critical privacy and security features, and meets the appropriate regulatory standards for safety, it may indeed eventually become an industry-changing phenomenon.

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5 Ways Medical Virtual Reality Is Already Changing Healthcare
Medical EducationVirtual Reality
The Medical Futurist | 7 min | 29 January 2020
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Virtual Reality started its fascinating take-over of healthcare for the greatest pleasure of patients and doctors alike. Here are five great examples of medical VR transforming patient lives and how doctors work.
Did you know that it is possible to swim with whales in the ocean while lying in a hospital bed? Have you imagined experiencing your 74th birthday as a 20-something? Perhaps follow a risky surgery from your couch?

Medical VR is an area with fascinating possibilities. It has not just moved the imagination of science-fiction fans, but also clinical researchers and real-life medical practitioners. Although the field is relatively new, there are increasingly great examples of VR having a positive effect on patients’ lives and physicians’ work.

If you need a quick refresher about VR before diving into the article, you can check out my one-minute challenge video explaining virtual reality in healthcare:



1) Watching operations as if you wielded the scalpel
Have you ever wondered what is going on in an operating room? What those doctors and nurses dressed in blue or green with masks on their heads are doing?

Since Dr. Shafi Ahmed conducted the first VR surgery in 2016 which could be viewed by anyone online in real time, VR now allows more than just passively seeing an operation from the point of view of the surgeon. The technology is now being used to actually train aspiring surgeons and for surgeons to practice operations. 

Companies like Osso VR and ImmersiveTouch offer virtual reality solutions to train surgeons and/or to hone their skills, and these have been proven to be better than traditional training methods. In fact, a recent study from Harvard Business Review showed that VR-trained surgeons had a 230% boost in their overall performance compared to their traditionally-trained counterparts. The former were also faster and more accurate in performing surgical procedures as well.

Virtual reality allows surgeons to stream operations live.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/
Virtual reality could elevate the teaching and learning experience in medicine to a whole new level. Today, only a few students can peek over the shoulder of the surgeon during an operation and it is challenging to learn the tricks of the trade via this method. With a virtual reality camera, surgeons can stream operations globally and allow medical students to actually be there in the OR using their VR goggles. Medical students at Case Western University are already being taught with the help of such devices as the HoloLens about the human anatomy, cadaver-free (albeit using the slightly different Mixed Reality technology). I believe that VR holds great promise in revolutionizing medical education and training, and such examples will soon become the norm.

2) Relaxing patients with Medical VR
Have you, as a patient, ever had the feeling that time just stops in the hospital, there is nothing to do, you miss your family and friends and you are constantly worried about your condition? Anxiety while in hospital, the constant worry about an upcoming procedure and the actual pain that one can suffer during or after a procedure are understandably taxing on anyone. VR is presenting itself as an enticing solution to help patients relax and suffer to a lesser extent in such situations.

In a recent pilot study, patients undergoing surgery at St George’s Hospital in London had the option to use a VR headset prior to and during their operation to view calming landscapes during the procedure. 100% of the participants reported that their overall hospital experience was improved by wearing the headset, while 94% said they felt more relaxed. Furthermore, 80% said they felt less pain after wearing the headset and 73% reported feeling less anxious.



VR is also being used to help women get through labour pain, or what is known to be one of the most severe pains and the reason for pregnant women to opt for epidurals. VR is a viable alternative for those who would like to give birth naturally but without the worry of having a painful experience.

Earlier studies with patients suffering from gastrointestinal, cardiac, neurological and post-surgical pain have shown a decline in their pain levels when using VR to distract them from painful stimuli.

3) Real conferences with virtual reality for an enhanced experience
You’ve probably experienced it and I sure can tell you about it, medical and healthcare conferences can be very tedious. What with the blatant lack of audience engagement, uninteresting presentation visuals and the all-too-common bullet points, these conferences could very much do with a tech overhaul. I collected 5 ways in which technology can improve medical conferences and VR weighs in as well.

digital health events

Visualizing a presenter and their audience with VR headsets strapped to their faces might be an entertaining thought, but such a scene is already a reality. Dr. Brennan Spiegel, strong advocate of VR in medicine, gave an entire #MedEd lecture in VR. He has also been using this technology in his presentations at the annual Virtual Medicine conference. Just the thought of such a presentation is exciting, now think about attending one! With the interactive possibilities that VR offers like 3D visualization and gamification, audience engagement and the overall quality of the conference can skyrocket.

4) Helping physicians experience life as the elderly 
Did you ever wonder how it feels like to grow old? How it feels like to not be able to lift your hand above your head? How it feels like when you’ve lost one of your fingers, or recover from a heart attack? Experiencing such conditions through VR can help medical students and young physicians develop one of the must-have abilities to becoming a doctor: empathy.



The University of New England put this theory to the test by incorporating age-related conditions simulations via VR in the medical school curriculum. The participating students were found to better understand such conditions and saw an increase in their empathy for the elderly.

Another university that explored the potential of VR in medical education is the University of Michigan. Students at this university used the MPathic-VR app to train their communication skills with a virtual human, which proved to be very helpful when delivering difficult news.

5) Speeding up recovery in physical therapy
For patients who survived a stroke or traumatic brain injury, time is of the essence. The earlier they start rehabilitation, the better chances they have for successfully regaining lost functions.

Bringing a gamified approach to physical therapy for such patients is Neuro Rehab VR. Collaborating with physicians and therapists, the company develops VR training exercises with machine learning so as to tailor each exercise to patients’ therapeutic needs. The aim is to make physical therapy more enjoyable so as to increase patient engagement.



Such methods have been proven to be indeed effective. In a study published last November, researchers found that after VR therapy, children with cerebral palsy experienced a significant improvement in their mobility. The authors of this study further called for adding this method to conventional rehabilitation techniques so as to improve outcomes.


Source: https://www.bbc.com/
Above are only some of the many examples of how VR is changing the healthcare experience for both patients and medical professionals. As the technology gets more affordable, it will be more and more widely adopted while more immersive technologies will come to the forefront. For instance, the Microsoft HoloLens and the Magic Leap can offer more interactive experiences with their mixed reality headsets, but these devices are fairly new and expensive. 



On the other hand, access to VR headsets are now as cheap as $5 with the Google Cardboard. However, in order for the technology to be more widely adopted in the healthcare setting, attitudes need to be changed. And for that to happen, physicians and patients need to be open to the technology. Once this is achieved, I am confident that VR will make healthcare more pleasant.

Applications of Virtual Reality in Healthcare
June 21, 2021
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Our healthcare system has never been pit against an enemy such as Covid 19, forcing us to look for innovative solutions that make global healthcare more flexible and future-ready for such disruptions.

Global Healthcare is turning to Virtual Reality, which certainly makes for a lucrative prospect for the future. It is helping in better preparing our healthcare systems for pandemics and global health crises, such as the one we face now. And while other industries are jumping on the VR wagon, hospitals, medical institutions, and healthcare tech companies are adapting to VR space equally well.

Key Trends emerging in VR Healthcare today
With movement restrained, we can see a surge in online consultations globally. Most technological savvy countries have managed to curb the impact of the pandemic with the help of private healthcare companies and service providers jumping to the fore, facilitating tests, consultations and medicines online.
Governments use the internet to keep their citizens informed and connected to healthcare updates, such as registration for Covid vaccines, reforms, and updates.
With people more aware of the health-related issues today, ‘prevention before treatment’ is the approach prevailing across nations.
There is a growing need for evidence-based medical information curated in an entertaining, multisensorial fashion.
This global demand for medical needs over the internet sets the stage for Virtual Reality to step up and claim what has been long pending – a completely immersive, sensitive VR healthcare experience.

Key Trends emerging in VR Healthcare today
Virtual Reality in Healthcare
Healthcare, similarly to most industries, needs a systematic and strategic overhaul of how we train our future workforce, how we meet and treat our patients, and how we live up to the promise of a better world. Virtual Reality in healthcare offers a solution to many of such challenges and is being tested, implemented, and actively adopted globally. Let us take a quick look at some benefits of VR before we explore its applications.
Benefits:
The VR technology not only offers freedom in terms of time and place but is capable of democratizing how we retain information, experience visual space while simultaneously …
lowering medical costs
helping navigate traumatic events
improving outcomes exponentially
VR healthcare also helps …

increase memorability by creating more impactful visual experiences
reduces fear & stress
eliminates the risk factor
If you want to know how you can make use of Virtual Reality in healthcare schedule a free demo with us.
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The Key Applications of Virtual Reality in Healthcare
The Healthcare sector is one of the early adopters of VR and is making the most out of it. The launch of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive has further augmented the usage of Virtual Reality in healthcare. There is a growing number of doctors who are turning to VR for treatments for phobia, surgery simulations, skills training, etc.
1. Patient education and information:
The uncertainty associated with medical consultation can be nerving. VR is helping ease such anxieties and proving to be an engaging learning tool that offers patients a better understanding of their health status. For example, patients can now choose to look at the diagnosis or see how the prescribed therapy works visually using VR.
2. Enhance patient experience
At various hospitals, VR tech is enhancing the patient experience in innovative ways. They use VR to distract patients who may have to undergo complex procedures and treatments and make it easier for the patient and doctors simultaneously. Also, while taking patients for a ride to another dimension, a needle prick or other minor diagnostic treatments become easy to execute, especially on children.
3. Medical Education
VR simulation is already revolutionizing medical education and training. It allows medical students and doctors to practice complicated procedures in a completely risk-free, cost-effective, and more realistic virtual environment. Read our article about VR surgery training.

4. Treating Mental Health Issues
Treating anxiety, panic attacks, and other mind-related issues such as phobias using VRET or Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy is another use case. The patients are immersed in a safe and controlled environment and confronted with their fears recreated virtually. In more complicated situations such as PTSD, the VERT technology has yielded positive results, giving patients another chance at life. Read our article about Mental Wellness Through Virtual Reality Therapy.

Mental Wellness
5. VR-Enabled Virtual Clinics
The pandemic worsened the suffering of people with physical ailments. No longer could they visit their physiotherapists for treatment. But with VR-enabled virtual clinics becoming popular, treating physical problems using VR devices at home is reaping positive results and is being extended to other physical ailments.
6. VR in Medical lectures and conferences
Medical conferences can be long and some – very long. On a serious note, with virtual conferencing already facing challenges such as audience retention and human participation, VR can come in here to save the day. With a VR-enabled immersive 3D experience, the audience can be taken on a roller coaster ride and make such events more memorable. For example, now it is possible to take the user within the human anatomy for more three-dimensional visual learning.

VR Healtcare
7. Virtual Reality in Surgery
Virtual Reality in surgery is steadily becoming the gold standard in Healthcare. Many surgeons and students are currently using VR headsets and haptic gloves to imitate real-life surgical procedures. It not only reduces the time and risk associated with the surgery complications but has improved efficiency and accuracy in the operating rooms significantly. Here is an interesting case study on Virtual Reality in surgery for more in-depth understanding.

As VR tech and devices become cheaper and accessible worldwide, such conferences and meetings may even be a preferred medium over the current event formats.

Virtual Reality in Healthcare – a Study on VR Surgery
VRdirect: Simplifying VR Healthcare
VRdirect, by far, is the easiest solution for companies to create and distribute Virtual Reality projects without having any previous complex coding skills. Be it a hospital, individual practitioners, or even medical colleges, they all can import their 3D models into more immersive VR environments easily. And this ease of publishing applications on a multitude of devices simultaneously makes VRdirect, an ideal and hassle-free solution for a reliable VR upgrade.

How does VRdirect work?
VRdirect platform offers a simple interface and quick-to-use features such as drag and drops to publish Virtual Reality projects. It uses 360° content for background visuals and allows importing 3D models into 360° scenes, enabling easy to navigate VR experience using the VRdirect platform.

VRdirect use to create VR for training
Apart from training and recruiting employees, VRdirect enables companies to use Virtual Reality for their unique projects. For example, a Munich-based company recreated human anatomy in 3D using the VRdirect platform, allowing users to embark on a journey within their bodies.

VR tech propels the healthcare sector to fulfill the promise of a better, healthier world, but there is still time until we fully harness the power of VR tech and its limitless possibilities. Nonetheless, a long exciting journey lies ahead of us in the form of Virtual Reality.

Metaverse in operating room is changing medicine rapidly
기자명 Song Soo-youn   Published 2021.06.26 07:56  Updated 2021.06.26 07:57
 
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Metaverse, a convergence of virtual and physical space, is changing medicine.

Seoul National University Bundang Hospital (SNUBH) built the metaverse platform in a smart operating room.

The word metaverse is made up of the prefix “meta” meaning virtual and “universe,” meaning the real world. It is a more advanced concept than the existing virtual reality (VR). The core technology of the metaverse is extended reality (XR), which encompasses VR, augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR).

On May 29, the Asian Society for Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery (ASCVTS) provided lung cancer surgery training through a metaverse platform at an online conference. The surgery took place at the SNUBH’s smart operating room, and over 200 Asian thoracic surgeons received the training in a virtual environment. All the equipment they needed was a head-mounted display (HMD).

The Seoul National University Bundang Hospital’s medical staff provides lung cancer surgical training in the smart operating room realized through the metaverse during an online conference. (Credit: SNUBH)
The Seoul National University Bundang Hospital’s medical staff provides lung cancer surgical training in the smart operating room realized through the metaverse during an online conference. (Credit: SNUBH)
Recently, the upgraded platform does not even require HMD. Surgeons can see the operating room with a 360-degree camera through a laptop.

Professor Jheon Sang-hoon of the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Department at the SNUBHl, who is president of ASCVTS, pushed to install the smart operating room when he was president of the SNUBH.

The smart operating room made it possible for ASCVTS to offer such training.

The hospital completed the smart operating room to produce 4K or 3D video and 8K VR video using 360-degree cameras in 2019.

In the smart operating room, surgeons can perform image-guided surgery (IGS) using near-infrared rays and displays that simultaneously support 4K and 3D surgical endoscopes.

They can also share opinions in real-time using a “Tele-Pathology” system.

After experiencing the “reality” of VR realized at the SNUBH’s smart operating room through ASCVTS, the Singapore General Hospital decided to apply the system to create a similar operating room.

In other words, the SNUBH exported the smart operating room to Singapore.

The SNUBH plans to use the metaverse in local medical training – not only for clinical training for medical school students but for surgical training for interns, residents, and fellows. As early as the second half of the year, the SNU College of Medicine will provide the metaverse clinical training.

In an interview with Korea Biomedical Review, Jheon said the metaverse applied to various clinical settings and medical training.

However, the nation’s outdated health insurance program is not catching up with rapid healthcare technology changes, which could hamper advancement in clinical care, he said.

Professor Jheon Sang-hoon of the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Department at SNUBH speaks during an interview with Korea Biomedical Review.
Professor Jheon Sang-hoon of the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Department at SNUBH speaks during an interview with Korea Biomedical Review.
Question: You provided lung cancer surgery training in the VR realized by the metaverse in the online conference of the ASCVTS. The training was organized by the Automotive Technical Education Program (ATEP), which you established.

Answer: I established the ATEP in 2011 to teach video-assisted thoracic surgery to Asian surgeons. We held workshops once or twice a year, mainly for those from developing countries. We rented education centers in Korea or Japan to provide surgical training for two days free of charge in the early days. Forty people in groups of two received surgical training using animals. However, this kind of training costs quite a lot.

Q: Did the ATEP change the training method from offline to online due to the Covid-19 pandemic?

A: After I took office as president of ASCVTS in 2019, I started ATEP’s surgical training in the lung field. We introduced VR in surgical training because offline surgical training costs a lot. Then, the outbreak of Covid-19 pushed us to offer timely VR education.

Trainees needed only HMD, so ATEP purchased 40 sets of HMD and sent them to Vietnam once. In late June, we will give one more training session in Moscow.

The technology has advanced compared to the early days. So, surgeons can experience the VR 360-degree through a laptop without HMD.

Q: Live broadcasting of the surgical procedure has been around for a long time. What is different about VR training realized by the metaverse?

A: It shows the surgical scene perfectly. Instead of offering one scene unilaterally, it can show you everything happening in the operating room if you put on HMD. Trainees can see what anesthesiologists and nurses are doing in more detail than in the operating room. This is possible because of XR technology, and it helps trainees to concentrate more.

Q: Is the metaverse used for training for specialists or residents?

A: Residents do not have many chances to operate these days. The thoracic surgery department normally uses animal hearts or lungs to educate specialists, but this is also not easy. So, we provide surgical training virtually.

Technology has been so advanced that it can even reproduce tactile sensations in virtual environments. We are conducting a pilot study to apply the metaverse to the clinical practice education for students at SNU College of Medicine.

In the second half of this year, we plan to apply it to clinical training. Under the MOU between SNU College of Medicine and the National University of Singapore and between SNUH and the Singapore General Hospital, the National University of Singapore will use the metaverse in medical education. We are also making VR for intensive care units where clinical training opportunities are scarce.

​SNUBH’s smart operating room is equipped with displays that support 4K and 3D surgical endoscopes simultaneously. (Credit: SNUBH)​
​SNUBH’s smart operating room is equipped with displays that support 4K and 3D surgical endoscopes simultaneously. (Credit: SNUBH)​
Q: What other healthcare areas can you use the metaverse except for medical training?

A: There are many. For example, patients on chemotherapy play with their mobile phones or read magazines while getting the injection. But their minds will be somewhere else because they are anxious. So, we’re preparing a trial to realize a virtual environment where cancer patients can receive chemotherapy comfortably. During a trial, clinicians will identify and solve problems and find a good technology while doing so.

Q: Some said the medical community’s opposition to telemedicine could hamper Korea’s technology advancement. What do you think?

A: Providing education in a virtual environment through VR or XR technology is one thing, and telehealth is another. But we need to introduce telemedicine. So, we have to discuss sufficiently what merits telemedicine could bring and what the potential risks are. We can’t oppose it indefinitely.

The medical community and the government, and citizens should make efforts to solve problems one by one. If you think doctors oppose telemedicine to keep their vested interests, there will be more misunderstandings. The times are changing.

Q: Are there any institutional areas that need to be improved?

A: The government says it will ease regulations, but it makes another regulation to do so. When it comes to national health insurance, it’s more frustrating. Rather than deciding on something and announcing it first, the government should listen to what clinicians have to say. If the government says doctors oppose telemedicine “to keep vested interests of doctors’ group,” the damage will be inflicted on the public. It is the same with the controversy of installing mandatory CCTV surveillance cameras in operating rooms.

In Korea, medical care is viewed as a public good. So, the government controls reimbursement rates. If doctors provide new technology for patients, the government should guarantee it with the health insurance program. There should be a method to introduce new technology into the existing system so that medical institutions can use it more actively. Otherwise, medical institutions would find it hard to invest in developing new technology and applying it to clinical care. National university hospitals may do so out of commitment, but other private hospitals may not.

 Healthcare in the metaverse?
Okay, the metaverse. I know we’ve all been bombarded with news about good ol’ Zuck’s latest Keynote and the impact it will have on our future use of social media — yet I hope you’re not too fed up with it since it’ll be the subject of this week’s blog post.

I ended up actually watching most of the Keynote and, to be fair, the metaverse sounds pretty cool if you don’t think about it too much. When you do put more thought into it, however, you likely end up agreeing with statements like ‘We know better than to allow Facebook to control the metaverse.’ That doesn’t mean that the metaverse is a strictly bad idea — after all, a digital platform that allows for more of the subtleties of real-world interaction could potentially avoid unnecessary conflicts, create new opportunities for connection, and make hanging out online more fun. We just have to be careful and critical with how it’s developed and used (easier said than done I realize).

Another thing the metaverse might provide is healthcare.

VR, AR, and MR
The main thing about the metaverse is that it’ll use Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality technologies to make our interactions more nuanced and connect us across platforms and interfaces. As Zuckerberg mentions in the Keynote, many people “would say [the metaverse] it is about gaming and that’s because gaming provides many of the most immerse experiences.” Indeed, many of us associated VR and AR with the gaming industry and, in the beginning, the metaverse might be mostly used for games. At least, Joanna Stern from the Wall Street Journal seemed to think they were the most integrated part of the metaverse at this point. (Highly recommend watching the WSJ video where she spends 24 hours in the metaverse).


VR, AR, and AI in the medical industry
However, VR, AR, and also AI are also used by the medical industry. Earlier this year, VentureBeat published a listacle about ‘21 ways medical digital twins will transform healthcare‘ in which they outline everything from virtual organs to software as a medical device, to personalized healthcare. Although one of the forerunners for the development virtual human modelling told VentureBeat that “This is a missing scientific foundation for digital health able to power technologies such as AI and VR and usher in a new era of innovation,” things like personalized health information using AI is already here.

Apps such as Babylon’s Healthcheck use AI to provide an “accessible and affordable health service” by working with the data that patients enter into the app about their health conditions, but also things like fitness data from other devices and mood tracking in the app itself.

Another company which aims to do something very similar is Treatment. While their app doesn’t launch until January 2022, the interesting difference here is that Treatment has announced their plans to create a “groundbreaking “Medical Metaverse.””

So, what exactly is a medical metaverse?

The medical metaverse
As Treatment uses the term, the medical metaverse will be the integration of their own AI technologies and Global Library of Medicine with AR and VR environments such as the metaverse. With this, they hope to create an immersive training environment for their own team but also improve medical education for students across the world. Ultimately, they believe that “this new medical metaverse will redefine global telehealth and healthcare in general.”

In the press release, the CEO and co-founder of Treatment also said that the team “share [Mark Zuckerberg’s] vision of immersive, open and creative on-line environments that will quickly attract patients, providers and developers, to deliver incredibly smart medical care to everyone.”

Many of us may already be using apps to contact our doctors for minor concerns, request prescriptions, and schedule appointments, but imagine if you didn’t even have to go to your GP for the consultation but instead could put on your snazzy VR glasses?

Instead of asking questions via an online chat or app, you could put your concerns to rest by talking to your GP in the metaverse and be given more precise advice based on digital twin information available to your doctor. Moreover, instead of a googling your symptoms (which will likely tell you you’re going to die), you could access AI-powered personalized health advice.

The companies working on these things promise that it will make healthcare more accessible and affordable which would be an amazing thing — especially for people living in places like the US where healthcare is insanely expensive if you don’t have a good insurance.

The flip side of the coin is that we have to consider how our health information is stored and how it’s treated. If Meta controls the metaverse then who will own the sensitive and very personal information we share about our health on the platforms? How will the different data laws between the US and Europe be applied? Zuckerberg emphasized Meta’s focus on privacy and responsibility — but do we really believe him?

HEALTHY RETURNS
The first metaverse experiments? Look to what’s already happening in medicine
PUBLISHED SAT, DEC 4 202110:30 AM EST
Bob Woods
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KEY POINTS
The metaverse will be an extension of the virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality technology already in use today.
Facebook and Microsoft glasses like Oculus and HoloLens already are being used in key medical technology applications, from design of medical tools to surgical procedures.
“It’s like having a GPS navigator in front of your eyes,” Timothy Witham, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Neurosurgery Spinal Fusion Laboratory, said after conducting the institution’s first-ever augmented reality surgery in June.
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Surgeon Shafi Ahmed poses for a photograph wearing a Microsoft HoloLens headset inside his operating theater at the Royal London Hospital on Thursday, Jan. 11, 2018.
Surgeon Shafi Ahmed poses for a photograph wearing a Microsoft HoloLens headset inside his operating theater at the Royal London Hospital on Thursday, Jan. 11, 2018.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The metaverse, the digital world’s Next Big Thing, is touted as the internet domain where animated avatars of our physical selves will be able to virtually do all sorts of interactivities, from shopping to gaming to traveling — someday. Wonks say it could be a decade or longer before the necessary technologies catch up with the hype.

Right now, though, the health-care industry is utilizing some of the essential components that will ultimately comprise the metaverse — virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and artificial intelligence (AI) — as well as the software and hardware to power their applications. For example, medical device companies are using MR to assemble surgical tools and design operating rooms, the World Health Organization (WHO) is using AR and smartphones to train Covid-19 responders, psychiatrists are using VR to treat post-traumatic stress (PTS) among combat soldiers, and medical schools are using VR for surgical training.

Facebook, Oculus and Covid
Since Facebook — now Meta Platforms — acquired Oculus and its VR headset technology in 2014 for $2 billion, numerous health-care applications have been developed. One of the latest was a collaboration with Facebook Reality Labs and Nexus Studios and the WHO Academy. The organization’s R&D incubator designed a mobile learning app for health workers battling Covid-19 worldwide. One of the training courses involves AR to simulate on a smartphone the proper techniques and sequence to put on and remove person protective equipment. With content available in seven languages, the app is built around the needs expressed by 22,000 global health workers surveyed by the WHO last year.

Oculus technology is used at UConn Health, the University of Connecticut’s medical center in Farmington, Connecticut, to train orthopedic surgery residents. Educators have teamed with PrecisionOS, a Canadian medical software company that offers VR training and educational modules in orthopedics. Donning Oculus Quest headsets, the residents can visualize in 3-D performing a range of surgical procedures, such as putting a pin in a broken bone. Because the procedure is performed virtually, the system allows the students to make mistakes and receive feedback from faculty to incorporate on their next try.

Meanwhile, as the metaverse remains under construction, “we see great opportunity to continue the work Meta already does in supporting health efforts,” a Meta spokesperson said. “As Meta’s experiences, apps and services evolve, you can expect health strategy to play a role, but it’s far too soon to say how that might intersect with third-party technologies and providers.”

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VIDEO03:06
What to expect from Facebook’s move to the metaverse
When Microsoft introduced its HoloLens AR smart glasses in 2016 for commercial development, early adopters included Stryker, the medical technology company in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In 2017, it began harnessing the AR device to improve processes for designing operating rooms for hospitals and surgery centers. Because ORs are shared by different surgical services — from general surgery to orthopedic, cardiac and others — lighting, equipment and surgical tools vary depending on the procedure.

Recognizing the opportunity the HoloLens 2 provided in evolving OR design from 2D to 3D, Stryker engineers are able to design shared ORs with the use of holograms. The MR experience visualizes all of the people, equipment and setups without requiring physical objects or people to be present.

Zimmer Biomet, a Warsaw, Indiana-based medical device company, recently unveiled its OptiVu Mixed Reality Solutions platform, which employs HoloLens devices and three applications — one using MR in manufacturing surgical tools, another that collects and stores data to track patient progress before and after surgery, and a third that allows clinicians to share a MR experience with patients ahead of a procedure.

“We are currently using the HoloLens in a pilot fashion with remote assist in the U.S., EMEA and Australia,” a Zimmer Biomet spokesperson said. The technology has been used for remote case coverage and training programs, and the company is developing software applications on the HoloLens as part of data solutions focused on pre- and post-procedures, the spokesperson said.

Microsoft’s holographic vision of the future
In March, Microsoft showcased Mesh, a MR platform powered by its Azure cloud service, which allows people in different physical locations to join 3-D holographic experiences on various devices, including HoloLens 2, a range of VR headsets, smartphones, tablets and PCs. In a blog post, the company imagined avatars of medical students, learning about human anatomy,  gathered around a holographic model and peeling back muscles to see what’s underneath.

Microsoft sees many opportunities for its MR tech, and in March secured a $20 billion contract with the U.S. military for its use with soldiers.

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VIDEO04:34
Microsoft’s Alex Kipman on the future of mixed reality
In real-world applications of AR medical technology, Johns Hopkins neurosurgeons performed the institution’s first-ever AR surgeries on living patients in June. During the initial procedure, physicians placed six screws in a patient’s spine during a spinal fusion. Two days later, a separate team of surgeons removed a cancerous tumor from the spine of a patient. Both teams donned headsets made by Augmedics, an Israeli firm, equipped with a see-through eye display that projects images of a patient’s internal anatomy, such as bones and other tissue, based on CT scans. “It’s like having a GPS navigator in front of your eyes,” said Timothy Witham, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Neurosurgery Spinal Fusion Laboratory.

At the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, instructors at the Gordon Center for Simulation and Innovation in Medical Education utilize AR, VR and MR to train emergency first-responders to treat trauma patients, including those who have had a stroke, heart attack or gunshot wound. Students practice life-saving cardiac procedures on Harvey, a life-like mannequin that realistically simulates nearly any cardiac disease. Wearing VR headsets, students can “see” the underlying anatomy which is graphically exposed on Harvey.

“In the digital environment, we’re not bound by physical objects,” said Barry Issenberg, MD, Professor of Medicine and director of the Gordon Center. Before developing the virtual technology curriculum, he said, students had to physically be on the scene and train on actual trauma patients. “Now we can guarantee that all learners have the same virtual experience, regardless of their geographic location.”

Since it was founded in 1999, the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) has developed VR, AI and other technologies to address a variety of medical and mental health conditions. “When I first got involved, the technology was Stone Age,” said Albert “Skip” Rizzo, a psychologist and director for medical virtual reality at ICT, recalling his tinkering with an Apple IIe and a Game Boy handheld console. Today he uses VR and AR headsets from Oculus, HP and Magic Leap.

Rizzo has helped create a VR exposure therapy, called Bravemind, aimed at providing relief from PTS, particularly among veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During exposure therapy, a patient, guided by a trained therapist, confronts his or her trauma memories through simulations of their experiences. Wearing a headset, the patient can be immersed in several different virtual scenarios, including a Middle-Eastern themed city and desert road environments.

“Patients use a keyboard to simulate people, insurgents, explosions, even smells and vibrations,” Rizzo said. And rather than relying exclusively on imagining a particular scenario, a patient can experience it in a safe, virtual world as an alternative to traditional talk therapy. The evidence-based Bravemind therapy is now available at more than a dozen Veterans Administration hospitals, where it has been shown to produce a meaningful reduction in PTS symptoms. Additional randomized controlled studies are ongoing.

As Big Tech continues to build out the metaverse, alongside software and hardware companies, academia and other R&D partners, the health-care industry remains a real-life proving ground. “While the metaverse is still in its infancy, it holds tremendous potential for the transformation and improvement of health care,” wrote Paulo Pinheiro, head of software at Cambridge, U.K.-based Sagentia Innovation on the advisory firm’s website. “It will be fascinating to watch the situation unfold.”

Metaverse is not a utopian healthcare field that has already benefited from it
CoinYuppie • 2021-12-17 09:03 • Metaverse & NFT News
How long will the Metaverse be realized? Some say ten years, some say twenty years or even longer.

Before the ideal Metaverse is truly realized, its underlying technology has already affected and even changed many of our current industries, and the medical care field is one of them.

Research shows that the healthcare market is not only aware of new technologies and their benefits, but is also accelerating their adoption. According to the 2020-2026 Global Healthcare Market Mixed Reality Report, the global healthcare market is expected to grow 10 times. Grand View Research found in its Augmented Reality Market Size, Share and Trend Analysis Report in February 2021 that it is expected to become The top industry for augmented reality growth.

Recently, Dr. David Rhew, Chief Medical Officer of Microsoft, shared with you how Microsoft uses mixed reality to improve current and future healthcare issues.

Today, I will mainly talk about the main use cases of Microsoft’s mixed reality in the healthcare field and the technology behind it.

Why does the “healthcare field” experience changes

Healthcare is shifting from traditional manual processes and infrastructure to a more modern future.

Metaverse is not a utopian healthcare field that has already benefited from it
“Meet one, make one, teach one” is a famous saying by Dr. Willian Halstead in 1890. It specifically refers to the traditional clinical medicine students  in the training process, students learn different types of surgery through each real patient, and increase their professionalism over time and countless surgical experience, and finally reach the top level, and then these reach the top of the pyramid. Experts then share their experience with the next generation of doctors.

However, the number of real patients and the opportunities for practical operations are uncontrollable. Medical students not only need to spend a long time accumulating experience, but also worry about the safety of each practical operation.

To be honest, this pyramid is a bit “narrow” and it cannot be expanded efficiently.

Now we can use mixed reality to create an immersive doctor-patient experience and provide students with a high-quality virtual learning environment. We can use equipment to change many views of space, use 3D images to understand space more vividly, and also know how these images are related. Differences in experience may change the way we see the world.

This is exactly the “mixed reality” we are talking about. 

Metaverse is not a utopian healthcare field that has already benefited from it
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella once said: “When you change the way you look at the world, you also change the world you see.”

What is mixed reality?

The popular interpretation of Mixed Reality (MR) is to mix the real world and the virtual world to produce a new visual environment. The environment contains both physical entities and virtual information, and it must be “real-time”. The two representative devices of MR are Hololens and Magic Leap.

Metaverse is not a utopian healthcare field that has already benefited from it
The real excitement of mixed reality lies in the images and visualizations, which make you feel like you are indeed there, full of realism. It allows us to immerse and interact in 3D space. Therefore, one of the main benefits of using mixed reality technology in healthcare is the ability to experience spatial concepts in 3D.

Speaking of Microsoft Mixed Reality, the first thing we may think of is the MR headset (HoloLens, ‍Mixed Reality Head-mounted Display). In fact, Microsoft Mixed Reality is a combination of application systems, platforms, and devices (as shown in the figure below).

Image analysis is actually done on the back end through the mesh platform on Azure, which allows us to create 3D avatars, extract data from different sources, and let us have an immersive interactive experience. In addition, the Mesh platform can not only connect with HoloLens, but also connect with other types of technical tools (such as PCs, mobile devices, virtual reality headsets).

Metaverse is not a utopian healthcare field that has already benefited from it
A picture to understand Microsoft’s mixed reality

How “mixed reality” empowers modern healthcare

Microsoft has created an immersive doctor-patient interactive experience. Provide clinicians with various MR equipment and application systems, allowing patients to have an immersive experience in the medical environment.

The following are three main use cases of Microsoft’s mixed reality to fully understand “modern healthcare.”

Metaverse is not a utopian healthcare field that has already benefited from it
Some of these mixed reality use cases have entered the market

Holographic communication

Metaverse is not a utopian healthcare field that has already benefited from it
Holographic communication: refers to the application of mixed reality to a doctor-patient communication environment. After the doctor and the patient wear the headset, they communicate and consult through 3D holography. This can improve the efficiency of surgical operations and enhance the doctor-patient relationship.

It’s boring to say it, you will definitely be eye-opening after watching the following video . ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍�?/font>

There are two important use cases. One is to use HoloLens to communicate pre-operative plans with patients to help patients accurately understand the operation and the content of the operation, so that patients are confident about the upcoming operation/treatment. This use case can also be used for postoperative analysis. The other is to extract images from CT MRI, reconstruct new structures and compare them with old structures.

Remote consultation

Metaverse is not a utopian healthcare field that has already benefited from it
Remote consultation: Refers to the application of mixed reality to the clinical environment. Use HoloLens2 and Dynamics 365 for remote consultation.

The doctor can remotely appear next to the patient and provide consultation and advice. This also effectively improves the collaboration capabilities of the medical team.

This use case has entered the market. During the epidemic, clinicians from the national health department used remote consultations to take care of patients with the epidemic. You can watch this video to learn more about the actual deployment and application of mixed reality.

In the video, Dr. James Kincross, a consultant and surgeon at Imperial College London, realized after seeing the working conditions of 29 medical staff during the epidemic that this established way of working would be unsustainable in the next few months. He designed a solution based on HoloLens 2 and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist to enable medical staff to communicate with patients remotely and perform rounds.

“I used HoloLens in surgery before, and we quickly realized that it has a unique role because we can use it for telemedicine,” Kincross said. “It solved an important problem for us during the crisis, allowing us to continue to treat severely ill patients while limiting our exposure to deadly viruses. Not only that, it also reduced the consumption of protective equipment and improved the efficiency of ward rounds.

Enhanced teaching

Metaverse is not a utopian healthcare field that has already benefited from it
Enhanced teaching : refers to the use of mixed reality and the learning and training of medical students. This scene is a combination of HoloLens2 technology and interactive HoloAnatomy application.

Students can learn and clinical training through enhanced teaching, which is a good opportunity for students in training and learning (such as medical students, nursing students, pharmacy students, etc. who need programmatic training and residents, etc.) .

It can help students fully understand everything from anatomy to surgery. It also allows students to perform clinical exercises in a safe environment to avoid danger), and make adequate preparations for future medical practices.

Case Western Reserve University has experimented with mixed reality courses, allowing students to experience virtual teaching anatomy courses, and found that the student detention rate has increased by 50%, and clinical medicine course time has also been reduced by 40%. This not only enhances students’ understanding and interest in courses, but also improves the teaching efficiency of clinical medicine.

Metaverse is not a utopian healthcare field that has already benefited from it
Mixed reality has great potential to change the way we care for patients and train clinicians around the world.

However, the current high cost of mixed reality deployment, there are still obstacles to widespread adoption.

Microsoft Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Rhew said that cost is of course an important factor in healthcare, but mixed reality devices can be deployed in a very cost-effective manner. For example, not all users need to wear headphones. In remote scenarios, participants can participate from their personal computers.

Seeing here, is there a new understanding of the “Metaverse”, is it a bit cool to do a real thing?

Finally, I hope you all remember. Whether it is Microsoft or any company, the use of mixed reality in the healthcare field is to empower, not replace the real clinic, doctor decision-making, and doctor-patient relationship.

Reference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52InDICzTcs&t=323s

https://www.technologyrecord.com/Article/moving-towards-a-modern-healthcare-future-with-hololens-126329

Note: The above pictures and videos are from Microsoft

Author: mayteng

The Metaverse and Healthcare - Part 1
THE METAVERSE AND HEALTHCARE – PART 1,

THE EVER-CHANGING INTERNET LANDSCAPE

Written by: Carl Larsen, PMP, MBA

 Recently, the term The Metaverse was officially added to the public lexicon. The term is a marriage, or portmanteau, of “meta” meaning transcending or transcendent and universe, e.g., “metaverse” or transcending the universe of the internet. Facebook® CEO, Mark Zuckerburg, recently announced that the company was changing its name to “META,” to reflect the company’s anticipated investment of over $10B in 2021 alone, to expand into The Metaverse the term was officially launched mainstream. As it turns out, The Metaverse finds its origins in the late 1970s and since then, it has been quietly building a presence in the halls of Big Tech.

According to Zuckerburg, the purpose for the move by Facebook is to reflect the variety of interests the company was pursuing. Initially, it seemed that most people outside of Big Tech thought of The Metaverse as another gaming system or platform perhaps due to the deep involvement of such companies as Epic Games’® Fortnite, Roblox, and even Animal Crossing: New Horizons, all with increasingly metaverse-like elements. Fortnite, an Epic Games company, and Roblox, are the only two that reportedly have established a true “footprint” in The Metaverse today.

However, with the announcement by Zuckerburg and the statements by others like Epic Games’ CEO, Tim Sweeny, the realization that is finally hitting home that The Metaverse is far more than a new gaming platform. Embodied in the concepts promoted by these and other thought leaders, The Metaverse represents a completely new ‘culture’ and ‘ideology’ designed to alter our human interaction by replacing sentient beings with digital avatars that operate in a digital space and in real time as the human beings they represent. This forces us to recall the Memorex® tag line: “is it live or is it Memorex?”

In this series of blogs, we will explore what is known about The Metaverse, our view of the pros and cons of its applications, risks and rewards, and the use of existing technologies in The Metaverse. Lastly, as a healthcare company, we will address not only how we began positioning for The Metaverse a few years ago and also how we envision The Metaverse being utilized for health and wellness of the general population, as well as remote or distant patient monitoring and caregiving.

WHAT IS THE METAVERSE

The Metaverse is often explained in current literature as the “next iteration of the internet, supporting decentralized, persistent online 3-D virtual environments.”  This decentralized virtual space is expected to be accessible through Virtual Reality headsets, Augmented Reality glasses both this and the later shrinking to glasses that darken the “real world” to display the digital world on the inside of the lense or ‘contact lense(s)’ – something far less cumbersome; smartphones, PCs, and gaming consoles that create a new human experience by combining an individual’s reality (via personal avatar) with the digital world. This may remind you of the movie, Ready Player One (2018), in which people are living their lives through an avatar, or The Matrix (1999), that depicts a dystopian future where humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality created by intelligent machines, the “Matrix,” to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source. Pioneers of The Metaverse claim that people will ‘evolve’ into their digital avatars and essentially live their lives in the digital world!

As of today, The Metaverse is still more of a concept, though it appears to be evolving quickly and will continue to evolve for some time to come. I use the term ‘implementation’ as opposed to development because there are many hands creating individual implementations with the goal of seamless integration – in a sense, a sort of ‘virtual’ patchwork quilt with each company creating their own “reality space” with internal autonomy in the digital realm, yet having full synchronicity and persistency, e.g., all ‘events’ within The Metaverse occur in ‘real-time’ with permanent effect. Let’s see what some of the thought leaders of this new digital reality have to say:

Mark Zuckerburg, Facebook CEO: “Our overarching goal across all of these (the company’s) initiatives is to help bring the metaverse to life.” No one person or entity will run the The Metaverse, it will be an “embodied internet.”

Tim Sweeny, Epic Games’ CEO: “The internet is broken and The Metaverse represents an expansive, digital communal space where users can mingle freely with brands and in other ways that permit self-expression and spark joy.”

 WHAT TECHNOLOGY CAN BE APPLIED IN THE METAVERSE

According to experts, The Metaverse can be home to nearly any technology or business application. Presently, only two (2) companies are currently in the space, Roblox and Epic Games (Fortnite), both gaming and virtual reality companies. Other companies are evaluating the space, as well as adjustments needed in their business model and operations to move into The Metaverse.

There are also some major technical issues that need to be addressed, both on local “PC’s” as well as a global scale. The “core technology” of The Metaverse is not yet mature, for instance AR, VR, AI, etc. that are necessary gateways or supportive in the digital world. Also, billions in investments in building additional energy capacity to handle the huge increase in computing ‘horsepower’ that will be substantially greater than what is currently being used are needed with lead times of five (5) years or longer.

The Metaverse will likely become a key differentiator between companies that begin making the move immediately to realign to this new ‘global’ digital reality and those that wait to jump in. Its rather easy to see the comparison in this to what we saw with large retail chains that chose to focus on their storefronts and wait for the internet ‘craze’ to prove out or die. For many, as we can see in their balance sheets, they and their shareholders are wishing they had stepped up and caught the early bus.

According to experts, the most probable early-stage access will be through a Virtual Reality environment. This puts many companies back into R&D as even more high-end computers are not capable of handling the calculational speed required for an adequate virtual reality experience. Clearly, a great deal of investment is going to be required in the digital device, computer hardware and software technology as well as the power grid before The Metaverse emerges from the shadows, into the light of day, and is fully mainstream to the public.

 OUR HEALTHCARE VIEW

Presently, The Metaverse is wide open, and at OXIO Health, Inc. ® (OXIO®), we are developing our own entry into this new arena from the aspect of patient and community health and wellness. The company is already equipped with some of the strongest intellectual property with our licensed patents for Virtual Reality[1], Augmented Reality[2], Artificial Intelligence[3] and Blockchain[4], along with deep technology and healthcare delivery experience to guide the implementation of these and other patents.

The focus of OXIO is healthcare, specifically patient health and wellness in the Medicare Advantage space. The Metaverse will provide OXIO with an opportunity to not only exercise its formidable intellectual property, but also to advance the state of quality patient health and wellness while reducing the cost of care – two of the core goals of the Company.

In our next blog, we will explore more of the pros and cons of The Metaverse applications, risks and rewards of this new “Techno-Culture,” and the use of existing technologies like AI and Blockchain. Finally, after we have properly set the stage and established a foundation, we will explore how The Metaverse can be used in healthcare and medicine. A glimpse forward to our discussion on the use of The Metaverse in health and wellness, we have long held the view that we must seamlessly integrate medical services and technology to create “Technology-Infused Care™” where the patient IS the data! This machine-to-machine connectivity with the patient through a VR/AR patient interface powered by AI and secured via Blockchain; all of which are patents that OXIO has under its exclusive license.

Whether The Metaverse itself or the technologies that are developed around it, this development will be a potential gamechanger for many areas of healthcare delivery. We envision material improvements in the overall health and wellness across all population demographics, as well as bringing cost under control in many areas. There are big changes on the horizon and OXIO is right in the middle of the burgeoning battle not only with the technology we have developed, but also in the delivery of care to patients.

[1] Virtual Reality Patent

[2] Augmented Reality Patent

[3] Artificial Intelligence Patents (Qx2/Qx3?)

[4] Blockchain Patents

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The Metaverse and Healthcare - Part 2
December 9, 2021in Uncategorized0by Noel Guillama184
The Metaverse and Healthcare - Part 2
THE METAVERSE AND HEALTHCARE – PART 2,

THE UNDERLYING TECHNOLOGIES

By Carl L. Larsen, President & COO, OXIO Health, Inc.

In our previous blog titled, “The Changing Internet Landscape,” we introduced the concept of The Metaverse and how it is being envisioned. If you recall, the term is the marriage of two words “meta” and “verse” (taken from universe) and is used to imply something transcending the known (internet) universe. In fact, The Metaverse, is a “new domain” or a new “digital reality” that will introduce a completely new ‘culture’ and ‘ideology’, altering, even replacing our human interaction with our personal digital avatars that operate in a digital space, in real time as if they were us – because in The Metaverse they are us – we have become players in our own digital lives!

Having laid a foundation in Part 1 for the concepts embodied in The Metaverse, and what it is intended to be, we want to explore the how of this new “Techno-Culture;” how the use of existing technologies like AI and Blockchain contribute to building this new internet ‘universe’, how that will impact and advance healthcare, as well as how we interact with our own medical and wellness data, and with our care givers. Finally, after we have properly established a foundation, we will explore in Part 3 how The Metaverse can improve healthcare outcomes, empower the patient and provider all while reducing costs of the delivery of healthcare and wellness.

What technology stack(s) can bring all of this ‘gamification of real-life’ together, what exists now, and what is yet to be invented? According to the description of American game creator, Jon Radoff, the 7-layer elements of The Metaverse are: (1) experience, (2) discovery, (3) creator economy, (4) spatial computing, (5) decentralization, (6) human-computer interaction, and (7) infrastructure, in precedence order from the outside to the inside (from shallow to deep).

Based on available research, the main carrier of The Metaverse includes the following components.

Telecommunications

The current, new generation of 5G broadband mobile communication technology may appear today to be ULTRA High-Speed; however, The Metaverse will demand substantially higher speed, shorter latency, and greater connection capability; substantially beyond the 5G network infrastructure that claims to be the interconnection of humans and machines. As noted in the first blog, the capacity and capability of the communications needed to handle the expected trillions of transactions per millisecond is several orders of magnitude below the current capacity of the existing 5G, even 6G (as envisioned). The Metaverse not only requires extremely high data transmission capabilities both due to transactions, but also to achieve the desired real-life affect. The communications backbone must have needed magnitude, speed, and stability of data transmissions well beyond current commercial capability.

Communications technology is a crucial infrastructure element for the development of The Metaverse. The desired experience provided by Virtual / Augmented Reality devices will demand much higher throughput to be accepted. Several developers have created dedicated technologies and chipsets for Virtual Reality wearable devices and provided downstream companies with development.

Healthcare data, in a post electronic medical record world, has started a revolution over the last 10 years and is now a major influencer on technology. First in installed applications, then on the Cloud, and now with the use of two-way remote devices and remote care. We expect that the pressure for more data and information will increase which in turn will require highly secure and protected communications. With personal medical data transmitted, patient medical and health information being broadcast, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 still requires complete protection and confidentiality of patient medical data.

Chipset (computing power)

Bear in mind that simply being able to do the computations to create the digital reality is nothing if it cannot be communicated to the end-user. We noted in our first blog that The Metaverse’s content, network, blockchain, graphic display and other functions require substantially faster and more powerful computing power – note also that this also materially increases the energy demand nearly pari-passu.

Beginning with cloud computing power, the DPU chip (data processing chip) provides a secure acceleration infrastructure ‘platform’ for various workloads in the cloud, data center, or edge environment by shunting, accelerating, and isolating various advanced network, storage, and security services.

At the local level laptop or notebook, home of the local terminal computing power, the heterogeneous chipsets must allow the CPU, GPU, FPGA, DPU, ASIC and other chips in the SoC to work together to continuously improve computing power to provide and hopefully enhance user experience, and provide true life-like (digital reality) movement and action – an expanding role for AI; however, even with AI we still need to make some large strides in innovation providing the constant fine tuning.

These ‘end-user computers’ do not currently exist and will likely require materially expanded motherboards. We envision the need for two or more ‘stacked boards’ until chip technology catches up. Even then, we must deal with the issues of heat rejection which is problematic in an already small device given the energy that the power density of these devices will require.

GPU is currently the mainstream of SoC chips due to its superior ability to handle parallel computing. FPGAs, as a supplement to AI inference operations, enhances the AI ​​computing capabilities of automotive SoCs. In the future, as the autonomous driving technology matures and finalizes, more ASIC chips will be introduced into the car’s main control chip. ASIC is the current trend of growth in autonomous driving applications; however, in the author’s view, this is still several orders of magnitude below the capacity and capability needed to manage several trillion computations per millisecond.

Cloud and edge computing

Cloud computing and edge computing provide users with required computing resources, lowering of the threshold for users to reach the beginning of The Metaverse. At the same time, the cloud and the edge complement each other. The resources at the edge of the network mainly include user terminals such as mobile smartphones and personal computers, high-capacity notebooks and tablets, Wi-Fi access points, cellular network base stations and routers, as well as other cloud infrastructure. As noted earlier, due to the tremendous level of processing needed, the current architecture in distributed processing will need to be greatly expanded. We predict that by the end of the decade, the average person over 65 in the U.S. will have three (3) to five (5) permanently connected healthcare related devices in their homes or on their person (i.e., advanced smart watch, to monitor and aid providers in their care).

 Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI will be broadly used in The Metaverse. AI will help create The Metaverse assets, ‘life plane’, and other content, as well as improve the software and processes used to build all this content. In other words, AI will contribute both in the development of The Metaverse, as well as its operational areas.

We’re not near being done as the ‘carrier’ of The Metaverse still requires a number of complex technologies. For example, to enhance the real experience of The Metaverse, GPU-based image processing technology needs to be continuously optimized; relying on the penetration of the Internet of Things (IoT) for such things in the future such as IoT terminals like automobiles and home appliances that could also become Metaverse interfaces. Current technology applied to remote patient management (RPM) is wholly inadequate to address the expanded use of VR, AR and IR (infrared) and sonographic live pictures of the patient in situ; however, we believe that once perfected, the gains in more accurate and faster patient diagnoses will be substantial.

Blockchain – a keystone

Why we think blockchain is the key technology of The Metaverse. Based on its own unique technical characteristics, a blockchain will naturally adapt to the key application scenarios of The Metaverse. Blockchain is a traceable chain data structure that combines continuously generated “blocks” of information sequentially in a logical and chronological order. It is a form of “cryptographic method” that ensures the data cannot be tampered with and cannot be forged, i.e., it is immutable and sovereign. Given its own characteristics, a blockchain can be used for digital assets, content platforms, game platforms, sharing economic and social media platform applications. The other important dividend the blockchain provides is in making healthcare application data secure, immutable, and accessible anywhere with security, and integrity across an enterprise that is ‘open source’ and has many different developers of content.

That said, why is blockchain such a pivotal element to the success of The Metaverse?

The application of a blockchain in digital assets recognizes that each transaction is initiated by peer-to-peer communication, and the accounting method of unspent transaction expenditure is used to store complete transaction records for each participant and maintain a distributed (multi-tenant) database.
On the content platform, the blockchain records original information and interactive records on the platform also go through the blockchain – this is to ensure that the records cannot be tampered with, and to reward outstanding content creators and third parties who provide services through a transparent algorithm.
The technical application of the blockchain in the game platform is to maintain all transaction records, smart contracts and Consensus mechanism.
Application of blockchain technology in the sharing economy is to encourage both parties in sharing economy transactions and conduct automatic transactions through smart contracts and ensure the security of smart contracts so they cannot be tampered with through blockchain technology.
The application of blockchain technology on social platforms is to maintain personal information and provide distributed storage services for users on social platforms, as well as process specific transaction fragments in parallel through each node.
Blockchain technology is different from other technologies because it effectively bridges the bottom and upper layers of The Metaverse. In the overall structure of The Metaverse, above the infrastructure, data and algorithm layer, and below the application layer, a complete, rigorous and mature technical system is required to support the governance between the individually developed and integrated areas of The Metaverse.

The characteristic of a Metaverse governance link is that The Metaverse is planned to be jointly constructed by many hundreds of centralized institutions and millions of individuals. So, it should be distributed, decentralized, and self-organized, as well as self-governed – the truest of “Open Source” enterprise applications. A veritable patchwork quilt of programs and applications that must interact seamlessly with full interoperability while maintaining the sovereignty of each element – this is yet to be done!

In addition, with blockchain technology, Metaverse participants can receive rewards based on their contribution (time, money, content creation). In addition, based on the blockchain, it can provide the exclusive NFT (Non-Fungible Token) as an incentive depending upon the specific ‘application’. For instance, an individual may receive an incentive for releasing their ‘de-identified’ medical records to a research institution through a smart contract and without any mining required – a strict peer-to-peer transaction, physician/provider reimbursement could come in milliseconds instead of weeks and so on.

 Risks

As with all emerging technology there are several risks: the known, the known and unknown, and the unknown-unknown. The following are identified risks in each of the key capability areas:

Technology development of The Metaverse involves a complex technical framework and careful balance of technology. The interrelationship of the technologies is crucial to success, and it is a bottleneck in a single technology area that could limit the development of The Metaverse;
The adoption rate of The Metaverse into mainstream use is difficult to predict due to the material changes in innovation, ability and context of use outside of internet games; however, we are confident that the adoption rate within the healthcare context will be accelerated by the need for providers to be able to handle more patients with higher quality of care and lower cost that many of the innovations we have envisioned will provide;
Decrease in user retention rate: The ‘gamer ecosystem’ is an uncertainty and none of the gamers may be put off about the construction leading to a loss of user stickiness and the amount of time needed to adapt to the new platform;
There are numerous potential policy and regulatory risks in games, digital currency and other fields that have not been fully identified, thought out or resolved;
The business models or companies, such as Facebook (aka ‘Meta’), Roblox and Epic are yet to be fully implemented: The Metaverse is still mostly in the conceptual stage with most companies still looking at an uncertain business model; however, we see the ability to move forward immediately with several early-stage healthcare initiatives that provide promise.
 Summary

In summary, Metaverse is the product of integrating multiple technologies, and blockchain is indispensable in these technologies, and it is undoubtedly the key technology of Metaverse. Clearly, the birth of The Metaverse hinges on the construction and improvement of several underlying technologies, including but not limited to chips, communications, VR/AR, AI, blockchain and predictive BIG DATA analytics.

We see many of these moving parts and some will make it and expand, and others will not. However, we are excited about The Metaverse and its implications for advancing the science of healthcare, improving patient outcomes, empowering the patient and enabling the physician. The challenge for those of us in healthcare technology is to address what can we do NOW that will migrate into a Metaverse environment and offer present value to the patient and provider.

The Metaverse is an extremely complex concept incorporating almost all current high-tech. This is good and bad for the development of The Metaverse. The advantage is that The Metaverse can integrate a variety of top technologies at the same time to create products that condense and crystallize human experience and wisdom. The disadvantage is that the ultimate value of The Metaverse lies in experience. If a technology fails to meet the expectations of experience, it will have a devastating effect on the realization of the meta-universe.

The Metaverse & Healthcare – Part 3

In the next blog, we will explore how the plethora of technology in blockchain, virtual/augmented reality, AI and predictive analytics can combine to accelerate the delivery of healthcare to patients.  Further, we will dive into the wellness to the public, and lifting the practice of medicine to a new plateau in which physicians can interact with patients in a way that enhances both the patient experience and the accuracy of the physician’s diagnosis. On the consumer side, the capabilities and functionality that will arise from the RIGHT application of these technologies and can be used by the public to analyze and compare their data to enrich their lives and improve their wellness. Obviously, both combine synergistically to improve the quality of care and life, as well as reduce the cost of healthcare and individual wellness.

Stay tuned!

– Carl L. Larsen, President & COO, OXIO Health, Inc.

The metaverse is already here. The debate now is over who should own it
NPR
By Miguel Macias, Audie Cornish, Connor Donevan
Published November 18, 2021 at 6:01 AM EST
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a future where people work and play in virtual reality in an online space called the metaverse.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a future where people work and play in virtual reality in an online space called the metaverse.
By now, you've likely heard of the metaverse.

Last month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent everyone running to their dictionaries to figure out what he was talking about when he said Facebook was changing its name to Meta and declared the metaverse not only the next chapter for his company, but "the next chapter for the internet."

The thing is, the word and concept aren't new. Neal Stephenson coined the term in his 1992 science-fiction book Snow Crash, in which people use avatars to explore an online world. A number of small metaverses have since developed, where people meet, play games and even watch live shows.

Some of those early adopters aren't happy with a large corporation staking claim.

What does the metaverse look like right now?
The metaverse is described as an internet 3.0, a place where people can do real life things — like work out, meet with colleagues, or take a class — but all online and in virtual reality.

Jason Moore teaches television and virtual reality at Brooklyn College and spends a couple of hours in the metaverse every day.

"These are virtual worlds that, when you're inside of them, feel like you're inside a kind of a cool video game," he said.

"But it's so much more than a game because it's like the internet, where you're socially connected. So, you know, you can do just about anything in the metaverse."

Anyone can strap on a virtual reality headset in their living room and enter an alternate online universe. There are currently a handful of mostly unconnected metaverse platforms, including VRChat, NeosVR and Roblox.

When Moore connects, he arrives in his home world, which he describes as a little planet. From there, he navigates to other locations. He recently watched a live performance called Mycelia, set in an underground cave.

"[It] felt like it was carved out of gemstones and stalactites and with a beautiful water cave. And this incredible artistic troupe actually connected electrodes, and these mushrooms were sending out electrical signals that were translated into music," he said.

Moore said a dancer was suspended in midair and the audience floated in the water below.

"You could actually swim underwater during the performance and see. And you could also kind of explore the cave system around the central stage," he said.

As well as going anywhere or doing anything, you can also look however you want, by creating an avatar. For Moore, that's a bulldog.

"So I look down and see these big, meaty paws," he said.

Jason Moore, a professor at Brooklyn College, is the director of <em>Alien Rescue, </em>an interactive movie that takes place in the metaverse. The audience plays lead and supporting roles and can affect the story's outcome. Moore's avatar is a bulldog.
/ Courtesy Of Jason Moore
/
Jason Moore, a professor at Brooklyn College, is the director of <em>Alien Rescue, </em>an interactive movie that takes place in the metaverse. The audience plays lead and supporting roles and can affect the story's outcome. Moore's avatar is a bulldog.
From a bulldog bathing in a bejeweled cave to poker in the stratosphere, there is no end to the possibilities. And Zuckerberg sees big things ahead for both the metaverse and his company.

Who should own the metaverse?
There are many questions about what role Zuckerberg's company should play in building the metaverse.

Meta's vice president of metaverse, Vishal Shah, is adamant that the company doesn't want to dictate what's created within.

"We're explicitly not trying to build this alone. It's kind of like saying, you know, what company owns the internet? It doesn't really make sense if you frame it that way," Shah said.

Instead, the vision is that Meta provides the backbone for the metaverse in which everyone is invited to come, play, build and experiment.

"And we've said pretty clearly that we want these experiences that get built to be as interoperable as possible because that creates the most value for creators, for consumers, for the economy."

"We want to build the underlying infrastructure."

This concerns Moore.

"I think it should be for everyone, and it should not be controlled by any one company. Certainly, it should not be controlled by a company that's demonstrated that they really put profits over people at every step of the juncture," he said.

The company has recently been pummeled by revelations in a cache of leaked documents that show how it has failed to control misinformation and extremism and detail a host of other problems.

Shah said the company had learned from its struggle and would build safety and privacy into the metaverse.

"I think we're in a better position because we have dealt with those things — to ask the right questions upfront — to ensure that we are thinking about them in a way that can be future-compatible," he said.

Then, there is the question of whether people really want the future to be the metaverse. Meta is betting that they do and plans to spend at least $10 billion just this year on its metaverse division and to hire 10,000 people to work on it during the next five years. The company worries that Facebook is losing relevance as its users age, according to the leaked documents. So staying on top of the next big technology trend, like the metaverse, to attract younger people may be key to Meta's existence.

Tech analyst Benedict Evans isn't so sure it will play out that way. He believes that every 15 years or so there's a great generational reset in tech and that we're at the start of one now.

In his recent essay "Metabrand," he offers a warning:

"Tech history is full of companies that dominated one generation trying to seize the next — they tend not to make it. The incumbents very rarely create the future, and the future very rarely comes from a centralized, $10 billion project."


GOAL: With the “metaverse”, Facebook boosts the healthcare industry
Photo of HELEN HERNANDEZ HELEN HERNANDEZ3 weeks ago0 69 3 minutes read


 
In the midst of a reputational crisis due to the attacks suffered in recent months in relation to the use of social networks and the Facebook business model, the company founded by the CEO Mark Zuckerberg reported last month that he would be leaving his current name to become Meta.


 

 
This was announced by its executive director last October at a Facebook annual event, where he announced that the company would change its name and begin to build the “metaverse”, a virtual world that the company has been developing, which will allow users of the different applications access through virtual and augmented reality devices, and in which the company is focusing all its efforts.


 
Although the last year of the company was one of the hardest (Revenues grew below what was estimated and reached a total value of $ 29,010 million dollars compared to the expected $ 29,600), the change of name was not so successful as expected.

According to Bloomberg, Facebook is worth $ 230 billion less since it became Meta. The outlet noted that the shares have lost more than 20% since their record close on Sept. 7, erasing more than $ 200 billion in market value.

According to Bloomberg, Facebook is worth $ 230 billion less since it became Meta. The outlet noted that the shares have lost more than 20% since their record close on Sept. 7, erasing more than $ 200 billion in market value.

However, although many are not seeing it in such a tangible way, the future of Meta of augmented reality and its metaverse can be overwhelming.

Although it is a world that is being born, what is being talked about when one talks about augmented reality?

This type of technology is going strong in the sectors of such as leisure, sports, medicine, marketing, engineering, education, industry, among others. A a growth of USD 125 billion in the global market of the sector for the period 2020-2024.

Focused on the medical sector, Meta seeks to consolidate its project.

Today, the healthcare industry is using a large portion of the essential components that will serve in the metaverse: virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and artificial intelligence (AI), such as as well as the software and hardware to power your applications.


 
For example, as reported by CNBC, companies in the world of medicine are “using MR to assemble surgical tools and design operating rooms,” the World Health Organization (WHO) is using AR and smartphones to train Covid-responders. 19, psychiatrists are using VR to treat post-traumatic stress (PTS) among combat soldiers and medical schools are using virtual reality for surgical training. ”

Since META bought Oculus, the virtual reality headset technology company in 2014 for $ 2 billion, both companies have developed a large number of healthcare applications.

In that sense, an example was the union between Facebook Reality Labs and Nexus Studios and the WHO Academy. According to CNBC, the organization’s incubator designed a mobile learning app for healthcare workers battling Covid-19 around the world.

“One of the training courses consists of AR to simulate on a smartphone the proper techniques and sequence for putting on and taking off personal protective equipment. With content available in seven languages, the app is based on the needs expressed by 22,000 workers health organizations surveyed by WHO last year “, highlighted the medium.

What is augmented reality

Augmented reality (AR) is a combination of the real world and the virtual world, where tangible physical elements are mixed with other virtual ones in real time. It is a term that is used to describe a set of technologies that allow a user to visualize part of the real world through a device with graphic information added by it.

The best way to explain and describe Augmented Reality, and for which it came to fame, is to refer to the famous Pokémon GO. The game, which was all the rage a few years ago, allowed a large part of the people to have an approximation and visibility of what augmented reality was, a concept not well known by the common people.

Augmented reality allows the user to add layers of visual information about the real world that surrounds them, using devices such as mobile phones.

However, in addition to games, augmented reality is going strong in sectors such as leisure, sports, medicine, marketing, engineering, education, industry, among others.

With which Cedears to invest the Meta project?

For those interested, from Argentina you can invest in companies related to Meta quickly and easily. All you have to do is open a client account in a stock market company regulated by the National Securities Commission such as Bull Market Brokers, a free process that will take no more than five minutes, and, after depositing the desired funds, acquire Cedears.

The Cedears or Argentine Certificates of Deposit are instruments that are equivalent to buying the underlying share that is listed abroad, but they can be operated in pesos and follow the evolution of the CCL dollar, so they allow to avoid the Argentine risk and, at the same time, hedge against an eventual exchange rate jump.

Half

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Sony (SONY)
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Alphabet (GOOGL)
Microsoft (MSFT)
Apple (AAPL)
Nidia (NVDA)
Amazon (AMZN)
Ecommerce

Amazon (AMZN)
Alibaba (BABA)

HEALTHCAREUK's DeHealth to Create a 3D Healthcare Metaverse
ByPYMNTSListen to Article Posted on December 22, 2021DeHealth, metaverse, healthcare, decentralized
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British nonprofit DeHealth is looking into making a “decentralized metaverse” to allow doctors and patients to interact in another “new world,” a Wednesday (Dec. 22) press release says.

The release says doctors and patients will be able to work and earn virtual assets by selling anonymized medical data.

The DeHealth world will incorporate a HLT, or health token, which the release says “will become the main mean of settlement within the ecosystem that will power it from the inside.”

DeHealth also plans to incorporate virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality technology into its metaverse, allowing numerous participants to communicate in a virtual space. Per the release, users should be able to transfer their digital identity, or avatar, to other digital platforms without losing their medical data.

A beta version of the DeHealth metaverse is slated to come out in late 2022, when it will become available to Hospital OS users.

The pandemic has spurred a number of new technologies related to the need to keep people physically apart, and the metaverse has seen a number of new developments since 2020.

PYMNTS writes that companies involved in physical labor, including inspecting oil rigs or training people to repair a vehicle, have been making use of assisted reality wearables to help from remote places.

Related: Pandemic Drives New Use Cases for Assisted Reality Wearables

Several of the devices come from the company RealWear. The devices in question will happen through a head-mounted camera and display, letting the expert to see what someone else is seeing on-site while still working from a remote location.

In addition, the expert will have the ability to give instructions, verbally or visually, through the display. The device is able to be used hands-free by the person on-site.

RealWear chief product officer Rama Oruganity said this could be the “new normal” where not everyone needed to travel all the time.

RealWear’s newest product came out on Dec. 8, including a new wearable that doesn’t immerse the user in the digital world. Instead, the product allows them see the digital world right below their field of view, like they’re in a car looking at a dashboard.

This could help out with tense environments like industrial cases which could be hazardous, where the user’s field of vision can’t be interrupted.

Health & Social Care
Our eight virtual environment scenarios for Health & Social Care give learners a unique experience of particular situations that they may find themselves in when they start working in a number of different settings.

The scenarios incorporate many elements of technical and soft skills and provide an ideal environment for learners to test their skills and discuss their approach with their tutors.

The program has been designed by our partners to support Level 2 Diploma in Care, Level 3 Diploma in Adult Care, Technical Level 2 Extended Diploma in Health and Social Care, Technical Level 3 Extended Diploma in Health and Social Care, Care Certificate.

Virtual Scenarios
Scenario 1 – Healthcare Support Worker
This scenario is based in a hospital ward setting and the learner assumes the role of a health care assistant on a green hospital ward, with a task to carry out observations on a patient admitted earlier in the day with abdominal pain.

It includes:

Donning and doffing of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Conducting visual examinations and patient identification
Conducting observations and reviewing NEWS Chart
Communication, reporting and handover
To view a video of the scenario, please click here.


Scenario 2 – Assistant or Registered Practitioner
This scenario is based in a hospital ward setting and follows on from Scenario 1. The learner assumes the role of an assistant or registered practitioner on a green hospital ward, with a task to carry out observations on a post operative patient admitted following an appendectomy.

It includes:

Preparation and patient identification
Conducting observations and reviewing patient notes
Communication and handover
To view a video of the scenario, please click here.


Scenario 3 – Domiciliary Carer
This scenario is based in a residential home and the learner assumes the role of a domiciliary carer doing a repeat home visit to support a multiple sclerosis (MS) sufferer.

It includes:

Checking in and access to the property
Gaining entry, identification and preparation for care
Observations and appropriate support
Housekeeping
Activity Recording and Leaving
To view a video of the scenario, please click here.


Scenario 4 – Registered Nurse
This scenario is based in a residential home and follows on from Scenario 3, where the learner assumes the role of a registered nurse doing a routine house call to follow up on a previous visit where concerns were raised about the state of the service user (a multiple sclerosis (MS) sufferer).

It includes:

Checking in and access to the property
Gaining entry, identification and preparation for care
Observations and appropriate support
Housekeeping and raising concerns
Concluding the visit and escalation
To view a video of the scenario, please click here.


Scenario 5 – Carer
This scenario is based in a care home and the learner assumes the role of a carer supporting one of the elderly service users with Alzheimer’s disease to prepare for the day.

It includes:

Getting briefing updates and preparation
Attending the service user’s room
Observations and appropriate support
Taking the service user to the location of the day’s activity
Supportive communication and reassurance
Housekeeping
Updating care notes
To view a video of the scenario, please click here.


Scenario 6 – Senior Carer
This scenario is based in a care home and follows on from scenario 5, where the learner assumes the role of a senior carer who must manage a conflict between two residents in the care home, aiming to de-escalate the situation and ensure the residents are comfortable.

It includes:

Getting briefing updates and preparation
Tending to the service users and the issue
Observations and appropriate support
Resolution and de-escalation of the issue
Support and comfort of the service users
Debriefing, documentation and incident reporting
To view a video of the scenario, please click here.


Scenario 7 – Fallen Service User
This scenario is based in a residential home and the learner assumes the role of a health care assistant conducting a routine home visit to an elderly service user who uses a zimmer frame for mobility assistance.

It includes:

Checking in and accessibility to property
Locating the service user (who has fallen)
Conducting visual risk assessments and early carbon monoxide symptoms checks
Preparation, care plan review and service user assessment
Escalation and service user interim support
Making the area safe
Documentation and concluding visit
To view a video of the scenario, please click here.


Scenario 8 – End of Life Care
This scenario is based in a care home and the learner assumes the role of a student care worker tasked with providing palliative care for an elderly bed ridden patient very near the end of her life.

It includes:

Receiving handover
Discussing palliative care with next of kin
Preparation for care
Carry out personal care
Communicate and support next of kin
Debrief and discuss feelings and mental health
To view a video of the scenario, please click here.


Program Partners
This program was developed in partnership with the following organisations.














Media

Program Cost & Availability
An educational annual license for this program costs from £6,000+VAT.

A commercial annual license for this program costs from £12,000+VAT.

Please contact us to purchase or more information.


Program Specifications
The program is SCORM compliant so can run on your LMS or that of a chosen provider.

The program is compatible with PC and tablet devices, however, we recommend the following minimum specifications.

Aimedis is building health metaverse with its own chain of clinics
Oliver Adey10 December 20210


 
The blockchain-based medical company Aimedis is entering the metaverse. To do this, you work on your own area in digital space with your own chain of clinics.

The metaverse has arrived in the mainstream at least since the media rebranding of Facebook. The digital parallel world has the potential to digitize entire branches of industry – including the medical sector. Aimedis has also recognized the trend and is now announcing its own plans for the Metaverse. Specifically, it is about establishing one’s own medical area in the virtual world, where patients, medical staff, clinics, universities, insurance companies and companies from the pharmaceutical industry, for example, have the opportunity to interact digitally with one another.

In the Aimedis Health CityAs the Metaverse is called, other hospitals will also be able to open clinics in the virtual world by renting or buying entire areas. About the Aimedis DataxChange, the in-house NFT marketplace, for example, lease contracts can then be concluded.


 
The first step is that company from the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates are placing their own hospital in the Metaverse. in the Alpha HospitalAs the clinic is called, therapy sessions and training courses, for example, as well as visits to the doctor and interactions between patients take place. In addition, students, medical staff and laypeople can also be trained. A dedicated AI with the sonorous name AVA guides you through the virtual rooms.



The artificial intelligence AVA at work in the Aimedis Hospital, source: Aimedis
The native token AimX also fulfills an important function as a means of payment in the Aimedis Clinic. The use of the payment method is not compulsory, but benefits users in the form of discounts. AimX also recently launched ProBit (AIMX / USDT) and Pancakeswap (AIMX / BUSD). In addition, you can now see the price of the token on both Coingecko as well as on CoinMarketCap follow up.

First demo available on Steam from January
Aimedis is currently working flat out on a first demo version of the Health City. You would like to get a first foretaste on January 24th, 2022 at the Arab Health 2022 in Dubai. Shortly afterwards, interested parties should also see the demo version on the gaming platform Steam can download. Aimedis is currently developing its metaverse based on the Unity engine. Furthermore, one weighs the use of the Unreal Engine 5 away. The development software is used, among other things, for games on the next-gen consoles Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 used. Graphically, the Aimedis metaverse should definitely stand out from other projects. In addition, the connection of IoT devices and trackers will play a role in Health City.

An exact launch date for the Aimedis Health City is not yet known. However, the company expects the first sites and clinics to start in the first quarter of the coming year.



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Sponsored Posts are paid articles for whose content the advertising companies are solely responsible. BTC-ECHO bears no liability for the promised services or investment recommendations.


How the metaverse will revolutionize health – Época Negócios
Abhishek Pratap 2 days ago News Comments Offon How the metaverse will revolutionize health – Época Negócios 11 Views


 

 
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health, medicine, metaverse, medical, (Photo: Getty Images )
With metaverse, healthcare industry must pass new revolution (Photo: Getty Images )

Robotic surgery. Electronic medical record. Telemedicine. THE health sector it has already undergone an intense transformation in recent years, and this process was even more accelerated with the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic. From it, new challenges arose for companies in the segment, making them invest in innovation and adopt new technological resources.

Despite the importance of this moment, the real disruption in the healthcare industry, it seems, is yet to come: it will happen with the creation of the metaverse, a virtual world seen by many as the next frontier of the Internet, where users will interact using avatars .


 
Guilherme Hummel, scientific coordinator of Hospitalar Hub, a connection and development event for the healthcare sector in Latin America, and head mentor of the eHealth Mentor Institute (EMI), a corporate mentoring organization focused on providing strategic advice to investors, IT and communication providers in health and companies in the healthcare chain, he explains that this immersive environment is built from the union of health care technologies. virtual reality (VR), extended reality (XR) and augmented reality (AIR).

know more
“They are nothing new, except that until now they have not served much, other than for the games and entertainment industries. However, three phenomena will make room for its health applications: the arrival of 5G, with faster connections and Internet speed, which will eliminate latency problems; the new self-care habits that emerged as a result of covid-19 and the explosion of gamification technologies, which went from millions of users to billions in the last decade”, points out the expert.

Based on this new context, the extended medical reality resources, according to Hummel, will improve the level of information that the doctor and the patient have and will be essential for the performance of surgical procedures, predictive diagnoses, rehabilitation, physiotherapy and other treatments, personalized medicine and training of professionals.

José Marcelo de Oliveira, director-president of Hospital Alemão Oswaldo Cruz, adds that population health, high complexity medicine and the telemedicine they will also particularly benefit from advancing the metaverse.

“This innovation will make it possible to monitor a large number of patients interactively and in real time, as well as bringing together experts from around the world to discuss cases and propose solutions, perform remote robotic procedures and improve quality interactions in telemetry”, he points out.

With all this movement, a series of benefits will be felt by professionals and patients: better preoperative planning, reduced surgery time, more precision and safety during procedures, reduced chances of intra- and postoperative complications and time for hospital stay, faster postoperative recovery and more personalized and assertive treatment.

Practical use of the metaverse in medicine
Currently, there are already some uses for metaverse technologies in the medical field, but they are still few and, in general, restricted to the most renowned hospitals. According to Oliveira, virtual reality is used, for example, in the treatment of some psychiatric cases, contributing to the reduction of anxiety in patients, and in the field of physiotherapy. In addition, both VR and RA have been used in operations, supporting surgical planning in complex situations and functioning as a navigator during the procedure.

“These innovations are already showing results and have a strong transformation potential. For this reason, our Digital Health and Innovation Center has a laboratory dedicated to the development of interactive solutions, with a focus on virtual and mixed reality”, says Hospital Alemão executive Oswaldo Cruz.

At the site, an extended reality exam analysis platform is being designed for use in pre, intra and postoperative planning. The novelty will allow doctors to discuss and analyze more difficult cases based on third-dimensional imaging exams.

In practice, they will have digital access to the patient’s organs, will be able to locate and visualize lesions, identify adjacent organs that may be affected and see what the best approach is – with augmented reality, imaging exams and digital tools will be superimposed on real scenarios and, with virtual reality, an immersion experience in a 3D universe will be possible, with the use of specific glasses.

The technology can be used in several medical areas, such as cardiology, oncology, trauma and orthopedics. “The vision for the coming years is for it to be fully integrated into the hospital’s operating room, becoming a daily tool for the team’s work”, says Oliveira.

Due to the need for self-care, Hummel believes that it is in applied telemedicine that the metaverse will come stronger. “At some point, we will have virtual consultations where patients and doctors will be integrated through XR. Thus, an ophthalmologist, even at a distance, can have a three-dimensional view of the patient’s eyes to find abnormalities, for example. And doctors from various specialties will be able to have access to the patient’s vital signs, sent via the internet.”

Istvan Camargo, head of Sabin’s Innovation Hub, adds that VR and VA technologies will also be applied on the personal side, for health promotion. “We are already seeing the use of gadgets in the practice of physical activity, but this will be expanded to other areas of self-care, including for people to get to know their bodies better. It is always crucial, when talking about health, to empower the patient.”

Limoverse – A Star To Rise In The Metaverse Horizon Built On Blockchain
Aditya Narayan, Co-founder – “through Google or YouTube, we are only able to get generic information, through Limoverse, we would be able to get Genetic Information based Personalized Practical Wisdom.”

Limoverse – A Star To Rise In The Metaverse Horizon Built On Blockchain
Aditya Narayan, Limoverse
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Aditya Narayan, Co-founder – “through Google or YouTube, we are only able to get generic information, through Limoverse, we would be able to get Genetic Information based Personalized Practical Wisdom.”

The Metaverse market is expected to touch $41.62 Billion by 2026. Coined by science fiction author Neal Stephenson in 1994, the term ‘Metaverse’ has become a buzzword in the industry. Limoverse is a pioneer in this universe rooted in health and wellness. Conceptualised by renowned wellness evangelist and peak performance strategist Sajeev Nair, Limoverse is getting the new generation touch through Aditya Narayan, the co-founder and entrepreneur.

1) There is a lot of hype and hoopla regarding metaverse and the infinite possibilities. How do you view it as a young entrepreneur venturing into the arena?


I am only as old as the internet in India. I have heard from my father and the renowned biohacker Sajeev Nair regarding people standing in the queue in front of internet cafes. With outdated thinking, some of the people used to say – the internet is all about chatting & cheating for youth, and it will fade away.

Where have we reached now ?. People’s lives are saved through internet consultation. Hon’ble courts are conducting hearings through the digital medium. Governments worldwide are evolving into E-Governance. Would we have survived the Covid pandemic socially without cyberspace?

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Let me tell you very candidly – “Metaverse is the New Internet.”

2) That’s a very interesting buzzword, Aditya. If metaverse is the new internet, what is Limoverse then?

Limoverse is a creative intervention and technological updation in the metaverse of health and wellness. I want to articulate it as “Limo as an idea is as beautiful as a verse, as layered as wellness Universe”.

To make it more factual and detail-oriented, I would say that it is a groundbreaking immersive digitally enhanced experience, enabled by virtual and augmented reality, energised by gamification and empowered by blockchain technology.

3) Could you explain the practical aspects and uses of Limoverse?

We may be familiar with news of people in their late ’30s or ’40s who do regular workouts and exercises suffer cardiac arrest or other fatal illnesses. This is because many of us don’t realise that ‘One man’s food can be another man’s poison and one man’s workout can lead to another man’s breakdown. If we had done the genetic analysis of those people earlier, we could have prevented their deaths by suggesting alternate lifestyles.

Inspired by our EPLIMO (Epigenetic lifestyle modification) solution, a person can enter into Limoverse and connect to expert coaches who give personalised lifestyle mentoring by accessing the genetic data.

Imagine how wonderful it can be when the expert coach in Limoverse will guide you with customised, individualised and nuanced diet plans and exercise regimes. The impact will be faster and stabler too.

Remember that through Google or Youtube, we can only get generic information, but through Limoverse, we can get highly personalised lifestyle information based on genetic and metabolic analysis.

4) How do transactions happen in Limoverse?

This is the fascinating aspect of Limoverse. We will have Limo Tokens. They are Utility Tokens to be used within Limoverse. One can earn Limos by becoming a part of the Limoverse and has enough opportunities to gain limo tokens by sharing one’s expertise, or by collaborating for various engagements, or any activity that can contribute to the growth of Limoverse. Those who undergo EPLIMO will have their genetic and metabolic data securely stored in private blocks, which they can give access to research and pharmaceutical companies and earn tokens.

Strict privacy and security protocols govern Limoverse, and it is built on a decentralised blockchain. This paradigm shift will re invent the spectrum of health and wellness and the crypto world.

5) Give us a sneak peek regarding your background?

My father, Sajeev Nair, is the Founder of Vieroots and Limoverse. He is a biohacking pioneer in India and has authored the best seller ‘The Making of a SuperHuman’. Vieroots has attracted eminent investors’ interest due to its unique solutions, and Bollywood Star and wellness Icons lie Suniel Shetty is an equity partner. Limoverse is already attracting prominent names from the startup investing world.

Vieroots has brought out highly research-based available nutritional supplements and brought out Biohacking devices with the intention of helping people to take charge of their health and well-being. EPLIMO was evolved over three years through the research team of Vieroots, and thousands of people have already modified their lifestyles using EPLIMO. Limoverse is the ultimate evolution in Personalized Health as this will empower health and wellness practitioners to provide their clients with personalised health care. A plethora of specialists, physicians, psychologists, counselors, fitness experts, gym trainers, dieticians, and experts in the health care and wellness world are connecting with us in the Limoverse.

The 1st phase is to be launched by the last week of December, and in the second phase, by April 2022, a fully operational Limoverse ecosystem and its blockchain will be launched.

An AI Universe, a Metaverse, or both?In the next two years, we will see the growth of AI into every corner of the technology world Gopichand Katragadda, DEC 26 2021, 00:49 ISTUPDATED: DEC 26 2021, 01:36 IST Gopichand Katragadda, the former CTO of ...

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/an-ai-universe-a-metaverse-or-both-1064752.html

Misinformation already present in the metaverse

In a bid to control the spread of misinformation, Sensorium's artificial intelligence bot David will have filters to limit what he can say about sensitive topics. PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM YOUTUBE VIDEO
PUBLISHED 2021年12月21日 上午5:00 SGT
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NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - In their version of the metaverse, the creators of start-up Sensorium envision a fun environment where your likeness can take a virtual tour of an abandoned undersea world or watch a live-streamed concert with French DJ Jean-Michel Jarre.

But at a demonstration of this virtual world at a Lisbon technology conference earlier this year, things got weird. While attendees chatted with these virtual personas, some were introduced to a bald-headed bot named David who, when simply asked what he thought of vaccines, began spewing health misinformation. Vaccines, he claimed in one demo, are sometimes more dangerous than the diseases they try to prevent.

After their creation's embarrassing display, David's developers at Sensorium said they plan to add filters to limit what he can say about sensitive topics. But the moment showed how easily people might encounter offensive or misleading content in the metaverse, and how hard it will be to control it.


Technology firms including Apple, Microsoft and Facebook parent Meta Platforms are racing to build out the metaverse, an immersive digital world that evangelists say will eventually replace some in-person interactions.

The tech is in its infancy, but industry watchers warn about whether the nightmarish content moderation challenges already plaguing social media could be worse in these worlds powered by virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

Tech companies' mostly dismal track record in policing offensive content has come under renewed scrutiny in recent months following the release of a cache of thousands of Meta's internal documents to United States regulators by former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen. The documents, which were provided to Congress and obtained by news organisations in redacted form, revealed new details about how Meta's algorithms spread harmful material such as conspiracy theories, hateful language and violence, and led to critical stories by The Wall Street Journal and a consortium of news organisations.


The reports prompted questions about how Meta and others intend to patrol the burgeoning virtual world for offensive behaviour and misleading material.

"Despite the name change, Meta still allows purveyors of dangerous misinformation to thrive on its existing apps," said Mr Alex Cadier, managing director of NewsGuard in Britain. "If the company hasn't been able to effectively tackle misinformation on more simple platforms like Facebook and Instagram, it seems unlikely it will be able to do so in the much more complex metaverse."

Meta executives have not been ignorant of the criticism. As they build up hype about the metaverse, they have pledged to take into account the privacy and well-being of their users as they develop the platform.

The firm argues that these next-generation virtual worlds will not be owned exclusively by Meta, but will come from a collection of engineers, creators and tech companies whose environments and products work together.


Those innovators, and regulators worldwide, can start now to debate policies that would maintain the safety of the metaverse before the underlying tech has been fully developed, executives say.

"In the past, the speed at which new technologies arrived sometimes left policymakers and regulators playing catch-up," said Mr Nick Clegg, vice-president of global affairs at Meta, at the firm's annual Connect conference in October. "It doesn't have to be the case this time around because we have years before the metaverse we envision is fully realised."

Meta also says it plans to work with human rights groups and government experts to responsibly develop the virtual world, and it is investing US$50 million (S$68 million) to that end.

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Sci-fi becomes real
To its evangelists, VR and AR will unlock the ability to experience the world in ways that previously existed only in the dreams of sci-fi novelists. Firms will be able to hold meetings in digital boardrooms, where employees in disparate locations can feel as if they are together in one place. Friends will choose their own avatars and teleport together into concerts, exercise classes and 3D video games.

But digital watchdogs say the same qualities that make the metaverse a tantalising innovation may also open the door even wider to harmful content. The realistic feeling of VR experiences could be a dangerous weapon in the hands of bad actors seeking to stoke hate, violence and terrorism.

"The Facebook Papers showed that the platform can function almost like a turn-key system for extremist recruiters and the metaverse would make it even easier to perpetrate that violence," said Ms Karen Kornbluh, director of the German Marshall Fund's Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative and former US ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The far-reaching metaverse is still theoretical, but existing VR and gaming platforms offer a window into what problematic content could flourish there. The Facebook Papers revealed that the firm already has evidence that offensive content is likely to make the jump from social to virtual.


Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg interacting with an avatar of himself during a conference to announce the rebranding of the company to Meta, on Oct 28, 2021. PHOTO: REUTERS/FACEBOOK
In one example, a Facebook employee describes experiencing a brush of racism while playing the VR game Rec Room on an Oculus Quest headset. After entering one of the most popular virtual worlds in the game, the staffer was greeted with "continuous chants of 'N***** N***** N*****'".

According to the documents, the employee wrote in an internal discussion forum that he or she tried to figure out who was yelling and how to report them, but could not. Rec Room said it provides several controls to identify speakers even when that person is not visible, and in this case it banned the offending user's account.

Bad V.R. behaviour
The abuse has already reached other VR products. People on the VRChat platform, where users explore worlds dressed as different avatars, describe an almost transformative experience where they have built a virtual community unparalleled in the real world. On a Reddit thread about VRChat, they also describe huge amounts of racism, homophobia and transphobia. It is not uncommon for players to repeat the N-word. Some virtual worlds get raided by Hitler and KKK avatars.

VRChat wrote in 2018 that it was working to address the "percentage of users that choose to engage in disrespectful or harmful behaviour" with a moderation team that "monitors VRChat constantly". But, years later, players are still reporting harmful users. Others try muting or blocking problematic users' voices or avatars, but the frequency of abuse can be overwhelming.

People also describe racism on popular video games like Second Life and Fortnite; some women have described being sexually harassed or assaulted on VR platforms; and parents have raised concerns that their children were being groomed on the seemingly innocuous Roblox game for kids.


People also describe racism on popular video games like Second Life. PHOTO: REUTERS
Social media firms like Meta, Twitter and Google's YouTube have detailed policies that prohibit users from spreading offensive or dangerous content. To moderate their networks, most lean on artificial intelligence (AI) systems to scan for images, text and videos that look like they could violate rules against hate speech or inciting violence. Sometimes those systems automatically remove the offensive posts. Other times, the platforms apply special labels to the content or limit its visibility.

The degree to which the metaverse remains a safe space will depend partially on how companies train their AI systems to moderate the platforms, said Professor Andrea-Emilio Rizzoli, director of Switzerland's Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence. AI can be trained to detect and take down hate speech and misinformation, and systems can also inadvertently amplify it.

The level of problematic content in the metaverse will depend on whether tech firms design digital environments to function like small invitation-only private groups or open public squares.

Ms Haugen, who is openly critical of Facebook's metaverse plans, recently told European lawmakers that hate speech and misinformation in virtual worlds might not travel as far or as quickly as they do on social media, as most people would be interacting in small numbers.


Social media firms like Meta, Twitter and Google's YouTube have detailed policies that prohibit users from spreading offensive or dangerous content. PHOTO: AFP
But it is also just as likely that Meta would integrate its current networks, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, into the metaverse, said Dr Brent Mittelstadt, a data ethics research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute.

"If they keep the same tools that have contributed to the spread of misinformation on their current platforms, it's hard to say the metaverse is going to help," said Dr Mittelstadt, who is also a member of the Data Ethics Group at the Alan Turing Institute.

Since a great deal of the misinformation and hate speech could arise in private metaverse interactions, Prof Rizzoli added, platforms will face the same debates over free speech and censorship when deciding whether to take down harmful content. Do platforms want to have virtual beings approach people and tell them their conversation is not fact-based, or prevent them from having the conversation at all?

"This is a debatable issue," Prof Rizzoli said, regarding the type of control that you will be subjected to in this new metaverse.

Defining and determining authenticity in the metaverse could also become more complicated. Tech companies could face questions about the freedom people should enjoy to portray themselves as a member of a different race or gender, said Associate Professor Erick Ramirez of Santa Clara University. Deep fakes - videos or audio that use artificial intelligence to make someone appear to do or say something they did not - could become more realistic and interactive in a metaverse world.

"There's more room for deception," said Prof Ramirez, who recently participated in a roundtable discussion with Mr Clegg about the policy implications of the metaverse. That kind of deceit "takes advantage of a lot of in-built psychology about how we interact with people and how we identify people".

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The metaverse could also compromise user privacy, advocates and researchers said. For instance, people who wear the AR glasses being developed by Snap and Meta could end up recording details about other people around them without their knowledge or consent. Users in virtual worlds could also face digital harassment or stalking.

"In the physical world, often you have to do some extra work in order to track somebody, for example, but the online world makes it much easier," said Mr Neil Chilson, a senior research fellow for technology and innovation at the right-leaning Charles Koch Institute.

Mr Bill Stillwell, Meta's product manager for VR privacy and integrity, said developers have tools to moderate the experiences they create on Oculus, but the tools can always improve. "We want everyone to feel like they're in control of their VR experience and to feel safe on our platform."

Even metaverse supporters such as Mr Chilson and Mr Jarre, the French DJ who will soon hold VR concerts, say regulators globally will have to draft new rules on privacy, content moderation and other issues to make these digital spaces safe. That might be a tall order for governments that have struggled for years to pass regulations to govern social media.

Mr Jonathan Victor, a product manager at open-source developer Protocol Labs, sees a potential bright side. In his vision of the metaverse, anyone will be able to own a digital 3D version of themselves, exchange cryptocurrency or make a career selling virtual goods they created. "There's incredible upside," Mr Victor said. "The question is, what's the right way to build it?"

Healthcare Metaverse Set to Take Off With the Launch of the Metaverse Doctors Alliance in South Korea

Solve.Care offers blockchain technology support to create virtual care networks in the Metaverse

SEOUL, KOREA, December 17, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Metaverse Doctors Alliance (MDA) was launched yesterday in South Korea, a first of its kind metaverse gathering in the healthcare sector. Solve.Care was proud to be the only blockchain company invited to speak and present its blockchain healthcare platform at the event. During the launch, the Company announced that with the recent introduction of their new network authoring portal Care.Labs, its intention to provide a Korean offering in local language to support the MDA. This will ensure the best provision of creating virtual care networks using blockchain as the coordination fabric.

The Metaverse brings the promise of a more equitable healthcare industry with possibilities such as virtual reality care with no barriers, avatars to protect patient privacy, clinical representations of patients, and an easier enforcing of physician rights. During the event, participants were able to enter the MetaClinic Metaverse to explore its capabilities as well as have virtual consultations with healthcare practitioners there.

Speaking at the event, CEO of Solve.Care, Pradeep Goel expressed, “We are honored to be the sole blockchain company invited to this groundbreaking launch. The world is preparing for the Metaverse, and the benefits it can offer, extends to the healthcare sector. It will bring a greater chance of accessible, world-wide, equitable healthcare. As blockchain allows us to solve the underlying root causes of the issues in healthcare, such as self-sovereign identity, security of data and health record management, fraud, consent management, and so on, it needs to be the base technology used to solve the overall management challenges experienced by healthcare today.”

Solve.Care is working with emerging cutting-edge blockchain technologies on a decentralized healthcare platform to change the world for the better. The company looks forward to working with the MDA as well as physicians, patients, employers, insurers, and government agencies to address the difficult problems prevalent in healthcare.

How the metaverse can help students and teachers adapt to a post-pandemic world
It is easy to be sceptical about ambitions to create a digital universe, but we should not overlook the opportunities to improve education
Virtual-reality-based learning has been shown to boost grades and student engagement – more vital than ever as Covid-19 continues to disrupt schooling
Leon Hady
Leon Hady
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Published: 9:15am, 24 Dec, 2021


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A student at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine uses augmented reality technology to study acupuncture in October 2018. Photo: BodyMap
A student at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine uses augmented reality technology to study acupuncture in October 2018. Photo: BodyMap
There is a new digital reality on everyone’s lips; the metaverse. Being touted by Facebook as the “next chapter” of the internet, many believe it is nothing more than a diversion to deflect from the company’s tarnished reputation. I believe it is far more than that.
We mustn’t overlook what an augmented world could mean for education. The classroom could be transported anywhere from the Arctic to the Large Hadron Collider, while everything from the night sky to a racing car can become an opportunity for learning.
Since early 2020, 91 per cent of students worldwide have had their education disrupted by the pandemic. They have been forced to adapt quickly, with remote learning becoming the new normal overnight. As a result, access to technology is now a necessity, not a privilege.
If we can embrace technology as a learning tool during a pandemic, then we can just as easily become early adopters of the metaverse.

The term metaverse was coined in 1992 by science fiction writer Neal Stephenson, who imagined a digital universe that could be accessed through virtual and augmented reality technology. Today, this vision is no longer the stuff of fiction. Not only will the metaverse feature extensive virtual spaces, it will also enable elements of the digital world to be overlaid onto the real world through digital headsets or glasses.
This is a game-changer for education because it provides endless opportunities for learning. It can also help us overcome the artificial siloing of subjects, a typical feature of our outdated curriculums. Immersive learning will allow teachers to combine traditionally separate disciplines like maths and science to provide a holistic, engaging learning experience.
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For example, a teacher could show their students a racing car. They could then explore how it was built, how fast it goes and what temperature and speed the tyres can withstand.
Through the use of real-life scenarios, key theories take on a whole new meaning and relevance, as educators will be able to bridge gaps between theory and practice and make their teaching more nuanced.

Think this sounds like a pipe dream? In the UK, Bradfield College, an independent school, has already incorporated virtual-reality-based teaching into history, geography and science lessons, allowing students to experience these subjects in a new light. The metaverse already exists – the question is one of mass adoption and affordability.
While the initial feedback from students at Bradfield College can be called anecdotal, longer studies in Chinese classrooms have shown that VR can have a huge impact on test result efficacy, with students who are taught using VR learning immersion typically outperforming those who are not.
Education syllabuses have a perennial problem; they struggle to keep up with an ever-changing world. Many will remember a time when maths students were told they wouldn’t always have a calculator in their pocket. Little did they know.
The metaverse can ensure curriculums remain useful and relevant. It will enable up-to-date, expert analysis to be embedded all over the real world. We could look up to the night sky and have Neil deGrasse Tyson explain the structure of the Milky Way. Expertise will come from anywhere, not just from textbooks and classrooms.
Yet it is not just our current ways of learning that are outdated, but our forms of assessment. Written exams are useless for both acquiring and exhibiting the practical skills needed for a variety of vocations.

Looming ‘learning crisis’ in the Philippines after year-long school closures during pandemic
Imagine if, instead of revising for a written exam, an apprentice could demonstrate real, hands-on experience by wiring a virtual plug, fixing a blocked drain or even performing an operation, all without the dangerous, real-world consequences. The science is conclusive on this: learning by doing trumps learning by memorisation, every time.
As with any new technology, it is our duty as parents and teachers to exercise caution. Many parents may wonder whether the metaverse will simply add more addictive screen time to our children’s day. This is a reason to manage our children’s engagement with the metaverse, not simply ban it.
Take the internet; most schools and parents are able to place parental blocks on certain websites and set screen-time allowances. There is no reason we cannot place the same controls on access to the metaverse. While we are aware of the harm of the internet, I believe it has been a net benefit for education across the world. The same will be true of the metaverse.
Indeed, the generation being raised today is already familiar with world-building technology. Games like Minecraft, which encourage organic collaboration among anonymous users, have attracted some 140 million players worldwide.
Theme park AR rides show us how the metaverse concept could work
30 Nov 2021

Herein lies a key benefit of learning in the metaverse; it can “gamify” learning. In other words, the virtual, collaborative and task-oriented nature of the metaverse will allow children to learn without realising it, which is the holy grail of education.
Various scientific studies have shown that learning experiences are most effective when they are fun. Gamification of learning is the future of education, which is what makes the metaverse a natural fit for the classroom.
The metaverse is another stage in the evolution of the internet. The internet has put the entire canon of human knowledge at our fingertips. The metaverse could deliver far more to the students of tomorrow, but only if we let it.
Leon Hady is a former head teacher, and founder of Guide Education, which has trained thousands of teachers


















 









































































 






















