ETtech Opinion: How the Metaverse will reinvent healthcare and its future

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

healthcare necessitated physical interactions between patients and clinicians. Over the years, the healthcare industry has evolved in leaps and bounds through cutting-edge innovations such as telemedicine, virtual reality (VR) enabled medical education, robotic surgeries, and so on. It is given that technology will continue to help healthcare push new frontiers, where the metaverse will play a key role in its transformation.

By leveraging virtual reality, augmented reality, and other immersive technologies, the metaverse could offer unparalleled opportunities to revolutionize healthcare. This includes better healthcare delivery, improved remote consultations, enhanced patient experiences, immersive medical training, and so on. If predictions are anything to go by, the Metaverse and the industry around it are set to boom in the next few years.

A report by Bloomberg Intelligence in December 2021 indicates that the Metaverse tech marketplace could touch $800 billion by 2024, and $2.5 trillion by 2030. This would transform virtual reality technology, and by extension, the future of healthcare.Healthcare in the Metaverse One of the most significant ways in which the Metaverse could benefit healthcare is through “virtual clinics” where patients and physicians interact through their digital avatars, where distance no longer matters, and language barriers do not exist. On the other hand, through VR, patients can immerse themselves in virtual hospitals, clinics or therapeutic environments, enhancing a sense of familiarity and reducing anxiety associated with medical settings.