Healthcare in the Dynamism of Metaverse After COVID-19: A Systematic Review of Literature

Cureus. 2024 Apr 3;16(4):e57554. doi: 10.7759/cureus.57554. eCollection 2024 Apr.

Abstract

The idea of the "metaverse" is a relatively recent technological development. The industries that are most supportive of these developments include finance, entertainment, and communication. In addition to these, the healthcare domain has been added to the list of domains that benefit from the metaverse recently. Within the metaverse, research is being conducted on a wide range of medical topics, including conferences and seminars, surgical simulators, awareness campaigns, research projects, and much more. The metaverse is a flexible and highly customizable virtual digital platform that can be configured to suit specific needs, making it an adaptable instrument for medical advancement. These domains, together with their benefits and drawbacks, are thoroughly covered in this review article, which raises the discussion of the need for medical productivity. These studies have undergone a minimum amount of research and experimentation, and the findings are fair from an investigative standpoint. This review article's major goal is to make a provocative remark about metaverse domains and how they have already been used and might be used as an essential operational tool in the field of medicine in the future. Consequently, the objective of the present study is to review the current literature on post-COVID-19 pandemic development that connected the metaverse with the prevention and treatment of diseases, medical education and training, and expansion of available functionalities in research settings.

Keywords: augmented reality; healthcare; metaverse; telemedicine; virtual reality.

Publication types

  • Review