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Metaverse for Healthcare: A Survey on Potential Applications, Challenges and Future Directions

Rajeswari Chengoden, Nancy Victor, Thien Huynh-The, Gokul Yenduri, Rutvij H. Jhaveri, Mamoun Alazab, Sweta Bhattacharya, Pawan Hegde, Praveen Kumar Reddy Maddikunta, Thippa Reddy Gadekallu

arXiv:2209.04160v1cs.AI

TL;DR

Healthcare needs digital approaches that address personalized care, remote interaction, and growing service demands. This survey synthesizes Metaverse-enabling technologies, healthcare applications, projects, and adoption challenges. It concludes that Metaverse technologies support applications from patient monitoring and medical education to diagnosis, surgery, and therapeutics, while implementation remains constrained by security, privacy, cost, and technical challenges.

  • Problem

    Healthcare requires digitally enabled, personalized, and geographically flexible services amid increasing demands and persistent resource constraints.

  • Method

    The paper conducts an exhaustive survey of digital healthcare technologies, Metaverse enablers, applications, related projects, challenges, and future research directions.

  • Results

    The survey identifies Metaverse applications in medical diagnosis, patient monitoring, healthcare training, surgeries, medical therapeutics, and theranostics.

  • Takeaways & Limitations

    Metaverse healthcare combines telepresence, digital twins, and blockchain for patient monitoring, remote interaction, treatment simulation, and secure medical-data handling.

Abstract

from arXiv · show

The rapid progress in digitalization and automation have led to an accelerated growth in healthcare, generating novel models that are creating new channels for rendering treatment with reduced cost. The Metaverse is an emerging technology in the digital space which has huge potential in healthcare, enabling realistic experiences to the patients as well as the medical practitioners. The Metaverse is a confluence of multiple enabling technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, internet of medical devices, robotics, quantum computing, etc. through which new directions for providing quality healthcare treatment and services can be explored. The amalgamation of these technologies ensures immersive, intimate and personalized patient care. It also provides adaptive intelligent solutions that eliminates the barriers between healthcare providers and receivers. This article provides a comprehensive review of the Metaverse for healthcare, emphasizing on the state of the art, the enabling technologies for adopting the Metaverse for healthcare, the potential applications and the related projects. The issues in the adaptation of the Metaverse for healthcare applications are also identified and the plausible solutions are highlighted as part of future research directions.

I. INTRODUCTION

The paper frames the Metaverse as a technology convergence for more immersive, personalized, and geographically flexible healthcare. It surveys enabling technologies, applications, related projects, and adoption challenges.

  • Healthcare faces chronic disease pressure, rising costs, population aging, workforce shortages, and limited resources.
  • The Metaverse combines AI, AR, VR, telepresence, digital twins, and blockchain to create interactive healthcare experiences customized to individual patients.
  • Remote Metaverse healthcare can use AR glasses for real-time physician communication and live emergency streaming to off-site clinicians.
  • The healthcare Metaverse market was valued at 5.06 billion dollars in 2021 and is projected to reach 71.97 billion dollars by 2030, with a 34.8 percent CAGR.
  • Potential applications include diagnosis, patient monitoring, medical education and training, surgery, therapeutics, and theranostics.
  • The review identifies implementation challenges including high cost, privacy loss, ethical concerns, and organizational agreement issues.

II. STATE OF THE ART: EXISTING DIGITAL AND SMART HEALTHCARE ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES

Existing digital and smart healthcare relies on sensors, data processing, AI, wireless networks, IoT, cloud and edge computing, and immersive technologies. These components support collection, analysis, interpretation, and communication of complex medical data.

  • A. SENSORS: Sensors measure physiological parameters and support real-time monitoring of patient healthcare data in IoT-based medical systems.
  • A. SENSORS: Digital temperature sensors are commonly integrated into wearable patient-monitoring systems to measure body temperature.
  • C. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: AI in healthcare uses ML algorithms to present, analyze, understand, and learn from complex healthcare and medical data.
  • C. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Healthcare ML supports clustering, classification, and regression through supervised, unsupervised, semi-supervised, and reinforcement learning.
  • C. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: NLP can analyze unstructured clinical notes, generate explanation reports, transcribe patient interactions, and guide conversational AI.

D. WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

Healthcare communication networks connect devices and services across cellular, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Bluetooth Low Energy, and 6LoWPAN infrastructures. Cloud and edge computing address the storage, processing, privacy, and efficiency demands of IoMT data.

  • Cellular networks use geographically distributed cells and distinct neighboring frequencies to avoid interference and provide bandwidth.
  • Wi-Fi connects computers, mobile devices, wearables, and other equipment to the internet through wireless routers and access points.
  • ZigBee provides short-distance wireless connectivity with easy setup, low power consumption, and simple device integration.
  • Bluetooth Low Energy supports low-power data transmission across point-to-point, broadcast, and mesh topologies.
  • 6LoWPAN optimizes IPv6 packet transmission for low-power wireless personal-area networks with limited power resources.
  • Edge computing sends relevant IoMT information to the cloud, reducing data-center workload, network traffic, and connectivity costs.

F. IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGY

Immersive technologies extend reality through AR, VR, MR, XR, holography, telepresence, and digital twins. In healthcare, they support training, simulation, visualization, remote care, and secure data-enabled Metaverse services, while introducing substantial implementation challenges.

  • F. IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGY: VR suppresses the physical environment, AR overlays digital elements on reality, and MR enables interaction between overlaid digital elements and the real world.
  • F. IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGY: Immersive healthcare content is particularly suited to face-to-face simulation and interaction involving complicated, multidimensional observation, analysis, and communication.
  • F. IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGY: Digital twins of medical modules, devices, and diagnostic systems can provide safe, low-cost training environments.
  • F. IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGY: XR applications let medical students practice abilities in realistic virtual 3D environments without exposing patients to real-world procedural errors.
  • B. BLOCKCHAIN: Blockchain supports decentralized Metaverse data management through immutability and transparency, helping store and manage healthcare data securely.
  • B. BLOCKCHAIN: Blockchain-enabled Metaverse healthcare faces high cost, resource and energy requirements, regulatory gaps, user complexity, and potential slowness from replicated storage.

C. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Artificial intelligence strengthens the healthcare Metaverse by supporting immersive infrastructure and rapid analysis of medical data. The survey also emphasizes privacy, ethical, error, and explainability challenges.

  • AI can strengthen Metaverse infrastructure, enhance 3D immersive experiences, and support built-in virtual-world services.
  • AI-generated insights can help prioritize critical patients, reduce potential electronic-health-record analysis errors, and produce more accurate diagnoses.
  • AI algorithms can rapidly analyze electronic health records and biomedical data to provide doctors with immediate recommendations.
  • AI-enabled Metaverse systems may introduce patient-privacy, ethical, medical-error, and result-justification challenges.

D. INTERNET OF THINGS

The survey describes connected devices, high-speed networks, digital twins, big data, and quantum computing as complementary foundations for healthcare Metaverse applications. It also identifies substantial integration, computational, security, and resource constraints.

  • D. INTERNET OF THINGS: IoT-enabled Metaverse systems can remotely collect vital metrics, support robotic procedures, and assist chronic-disease management and emergency alerts.
  • Key barriers include nonuniform IoT protocols, higher 5G costs and resource demands, difficult real-time organ replicas, and quantum-system integration and energy requirements.
  • E. 5G & BEYOND: 5G and beyond can support immersive healthcare, medical education, and remote surgery by providing high speed and ultralow latency.
  • F. DIGITAL TWIN: Digital twins can model hospitals for examining staffing, care models, beds, pathogens, scheduling, operating rooms, and surgical procedures.
  • G. BIG DATA: Big-data integration can collect and analyze structured, semi-structured, and unstructured Metaverse data for real-time decisions and predictions.

H. QUANTUM COMPUTING

The survey presents quantum computing, human-computer interaction, and computer vision as technologies that could expand healthcare Metaverse capabilities. Their adoption remains constrained by technological immaturity, integration difficulty, visual inaccuracies, and safety risks.

  • H. QUANTUM COMPUTING: Quantum computing could address Metaverse security, computational-capacity, and cyberattack challenges through quantum-enabled security applications.
  • H. QUANTUM COMPUTING: Quantum integration is complicated by binary-system incompatibility, high energy requirements, and the technology’s unfinished development.
  • I. HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION: HCI-enabled Metaverse systems could improve medical education, consultation, diagnosis, treatment, telehealthcare, rehabilitation, and remote robotic procedures.
  • I. HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION: HCI adoption faces immature, nonstandardized, and potentially unaffordable head-mounted and haptic devices.
  • J. COMPUTER VISION: Computer vision could support 3D tumor visualization, practitioner training, in-house illness diagnosis, and remote monitoring based on patient vitals.
  • J. COMPUTER VISION: Computer-vision inaccuracies can distort surroundings and create visual symptoms or grave consequences when mistakes occur in healthcare applications.

K. EDGE COMPUTING

Edge computing moves Metaverse processing closer to healthcare data sources, supporting real-time monitoring and imaging workflows. The broader healthcare Metaverse also relies on 3D modeling and application ecosystems, which face scale and content-creation challenges.

  • K. EDGE COMPUTING: Edge computing reduces latency and bandwidth demands by processing, analyzing, and storing data near its source.
  • K. EDGE COMPUTING: Edge-enabled health systems can gather patient data, trigger real-time actions, and prioritize potentially problematic X-ray images for review.
  • K. EDGE COMPUTING: Edge computing requires additional devices and introduces security, data-loss, heterogeneity, and cost challenges.
  • L. 3D MODELING: 3D modeling can create interactive anatomical representations that help patients view products and help physicians understand illness and perform treatments more precisely.
  • L. 3D MODELING: Dynamic Metaverse objects require dynamic models, making 3D content creation an ongoing challenge requiring substantial human and machine time.

A. MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS

The survey presents the Metaverse as an enhancement of medical IoT that combines immersive technologies, digital twins, blockchain, and telepresence for diagnosis and remote clinical collaboration. It describes applications including holographic interaction, secure digital-twin data, patient-specific visualization, and distributed expertise.

  • A. MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS: The Metaverse extends medical IoT by integrating AR/VR, digital twins, blockchain, 5G, and interaction between real and virtual worlds.This integration is presented as addressing limitations in human-computer interaction, interconnection, and cross-world integration.
  • A. MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS: AR/VR glasses support holographic construction, emulation, and interaction between real and virtual healthcare environments.These capabilities are described as simplifying complex healthcare scenarios.
  • A. MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS: Experts in real and virtual worlds can guide medical professionals remotely, supporting diagnosis and treatment aligned with medical-agency standards.The passage describes virtual presence and communication as mechanisms for distributed clinical guidance.
  • A. MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS: BlockNet improves digital-twin data reliability through blockchain and nonmutagenic multidimensional Hash Geocoding for indexing.The survey identifies microscopic analysis as a possible healthcare application.
  • A. MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS: Telepresence, digital twinning, and blockchain are presented as complementary components for remote patient monitoring across geographic distance.AR/VR mechanisms provide a sense of presence, while the combined components support remote care scenarios.
  • A. MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS: Metaverse-based monitoring can connect patients, practitioners, and geographically separated family members through immersive interaction.The survey associates these interactions with a positive environment for patients and improved health condition.

D. SURGERIES

The survey describes Metaverse technologies as supporting surgical planning, intraoperative visualization, simulation, training, and patient communication. Examples include VR, AR, haptic systems, digital twins, and EHR-derived 3D models.

  • D. SURGERIES: VR headsets and haptic gloves can mimic surgical procedures to support preparedness and operating-room efficiency.The passage frames these tools as especially relevant to surgery.
  • D. SURGERIES: AR provides hands-free access to patient information by mapping 3D virtual models onto the body during surgery.The same technology is also described as supporting three-dimensional teaching of complicated surgeries.
  • D. SURGERIES: An AR maxillofacial-surgery design uses a head-mounted device to capture visual features and superimpose patient details for virtual planning.The design is presented as facilitating maxillofacial bone surgery.
  • D. SURGERIES: Metaverse technologies are applied to spine surgery because conventional minimally invasive procedures involve radiation exposure, limited navigation guidance, and indirect visualization.The cited work discusses digital transformation driven by these constraints.
  • D. SURGERIES: The ITACS prototype provides haptic VR aneurysm-clipping simulation that senses anatomical structures and can mimic aneurysm rupture.It is designed to improve neurosurgical residents’ understanding of patient aneurysm anatomy.
  • D. SURGERIES: A patient digital twin can be created from existing EHR data to generate a 3D simulation for healthcare applications.The survey identifies EHRs as significant to this Metaverse-based approach.

V. ONGOING AND UPCOMING PROJECTS

The survey identifies blockchain, digital twins, and telemedicine as three main channels for healthcare Metaverse projects. It reviews projects spanning wellness, mental health, clinical visualization, immersive training, remote monitoring, and healthcare data ecosystems.

  • V. ONGOING AND UPCOMING PROJECTS: Healthcare Metaverse projects are mainly organized around blockchain, digital twins, and telemedicine.The section uses these channels to frame ongoing and announced projects from healthcare companies.
  • V. ONGOING AND UPCOMING PROJECTS: Healthify combines blockchain-based virtual wellness activities, health trips, clubs, expert-led online gyms, and online stores.Its stated mission is to bring people worldwide onto one virtual platform.
  • V. ONGOING AND UPCOMING PROJECTS: DeHealth conceptualizes a decentralized VR, AR, and MR platform where doctors and patients interact and exchange anonymized healthcare information.The project also includes virtual-money transactions linked to information sales.
  • V. ONGOING AND UPCOMING PROJECTS: Bump Galaxy uses a Minecraft-based gaming environment to address mental-health issues including depression, anxiety, and trauma.The project describes game-world therapy, societal support, safety, and visualizations with deep hypnosis.
  • V. ONGOING AND UPCOMING PROJECTS: AccuVein targets improved vascular access, first-time injection success, procedural savings, and treatment quality and safety.It is described as helping clinicians visualize complex blood-vessel networks and reducing patients’ fear of bruising.
  • V. ONGOING AND UPCOMING PROJECTS: HintVR serves clinicians, patients, staff, trainees, and content curators through 3D image-guided surgery, immersive engagement, consultation, and training.The platform also supports diagnosis communication, treatment-option explanation, expert guidance, and content monetization.
  • V. ONGOING AND UPCOMING PROJECTS: HealthBlocks uses IoTex Blockchain for remote monitoring, decentralized device identities, privacy, security, and rewards for healthier lifestyles.The project promises higher scalability and transaction speed with lower transaction cost.
  • V. ONGOING AND UPCOMING PROJECTS: Microsoft Mesh, HoloLens 2, Azure Remote Rendering, Intuitive Surgical’s IRIS, and GHA–8chili collaboration target immersive medical education, remote expertise, and 3D imaging.Other named organizations, including Google, CableLabs, Roblox, Epic Games, and Meta Platforms, are also researching healthcare Metaverse solutions.

VI. CHALLENGES & OPEN ISSUES

The Metaverse offers promising healthcare applications but remains constrained by implementation, cost, ethical, methodological, and evaluation challenges. Future work includes broader testing, additional medical applications, and surgical training.

  • Challenges: The Metaverse is promising for healthcare but still faces unresolved adoption challenges.The passage identifies the technology as promising while introducing challenges to its healthcare-domain adoption.
  • Challenges: Real Metaverse setups are required to test proposed healthcare frameworks in practice.
  • Challenges: High equipment and infrastructure costs constrain implementation, including approximately 3500 USD for a HoloLens 2.Advanced imaging and other high-end equipment may also be required.
  • Challenges: Healthcare Metaverse applications must address legal regulations, security, privacy, user rights, moral concerns, and credibility.
  • Future Directions: Future evaluations should examine larger groups, additional medical aspects, and potential applications such as ICU care and surgical simulation training.Some proposed studies also call for guardian consent and inclusion of children across categories.

A. DATA PRIVACY CONCERNS

Healthcare Metaverse systems collect and exchange highly sensitive patient information, creating privacy and security concerns. Interoperability and costly, high-end hardware further complicate implementation.

  • Privacy Risks: Metaverse systems can collect brainwaves, biometric data, health information, preferences, physiological responses, and body movements.
  • Privacy Risks: Healthcare organizations may collect sensitive information without patients’ concerns during service delivery.
  • Security Risks: AR/VR devices create entry points for malware invasions and data breaches across the healthcare communication process.
  • Interoperability: Healthcare interoperability requires systems to share patient information electronically while preserving consistency and availability.
  • Implementation Costs: Effective Metaverse healthcare implementation requires costly wearables, compatible equipment, and high-end connectivity infrastructure.

E. THE PERSONAL TOUCH IS LOST

Remote digital healthcare can widen the patient–doctor gap, while the Metaverse is presented as an immersive alternative for interaction and professional education. Its development also raises security, privacy, bandwidth, power, and environmental concerns.

  • The Personal Touch Is Lost: Telemedicine and remote monitoring can distance doctors from patients by relying on reported details or digital health records.
  • The Personal Touch Is Lost: The Metaverse proposes immersive and interactive options for connecting patients and healthcare providers remotely.
  • Future Directions: Growing practical applications are transforming the Metaverse from a technology into a healthcare business model.
  • Security: Security patches strengthen Metaverse security only to some extent, while continuous cyber-physical attacks can keep the attack surface fragile.
  • Connectivity: Server-centric architectures can consume substantial bandwidth, increasing latency and data loss that degrade user experience.
  • Future Directions: Future work should develop edge–edge, edge-cloud, and edge-end collaboration mechanisms to strengthen security and privacy.
  • Environmental Concerns: Wearable devices can consume substantial power, contributing to greenhouse-gas emissions and environmental concerns.
  • Conclusion: The survey reviews healthcare applications, enabling technologies, projects, challenges, and future directions for confident Metaverse implementation.
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