What the Meta?

What the Meta? 

Lately, the biggest buzz around the virtual water cooler is all about the “Metaverse.”  People want to know what it is and why they should care.  

The Metaverse is a shared digital space where users interact using extended reality technology. Extended reality technology includes both augmented reality, which adds data to what is already in your field of vision and virtual reality, which puts the user in an artificial environment where they can interact with digital things using devices such as laptops, smartphones, or even a head-mounted display (HMD).   

The Metaverse, You, and the Economy 

In the Metaverse, you can accomplish things that you can do as well, or better, than in real life. We’re just now reaching the point where technology makes it usable for more than the most bleeding-edge techies and hardcore gamers. The Metaverse offers near-limitless possibilities for more expansive interactions in entertainment, business, education, and healthcare.  

 The technologies that make the Metaverse possible have been around for years in video games. Anyone who played “Second Life” or games on the Roblox platform knows this immersive virtual reality experience goes back to the early 2000s. But what is new is this idea that the Metaverse is a usable space that delivers something beyond entertainment.  

 Analysts predict that the Metaverse will significantly contribute to the global economy. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that the market size for the Metaverse could reach $800 billion by 2024., with PwC estimates it could be worth $1.5 trillion by 2030.  

 Many companies are angling to “enter the Metaverse” right now, but at Cloud DX we’ve already developed a proof of concept of a genuine eXtended Reality platform that can offer real benefits. 

 Since 2016, Cloud DX and Sheridan College have been developing the ‘Clinic of the Future’, where our Tricorder-inspired devices and smart software platform work with the Microsoft HoloLens or Apple AR Kit to create an ‘Augmented Reality’ clinician experience. Doctors and clinicians can ‘see’ and experience the patient as they would in real life using our patented technology. Until now, this technology has been a science fiction fantasy, but today it’s actually possible - and we’ve invented it. 

Check out the video demo here

The Medical Metaverse and Cloud XR 

Our Cloud XR team has delivered the Virtual Clinician Assistant (VCA) for the medical Metaverse. The VCA system will provide full access to the patient’s chart in a 3D, hands-free experience that’s voice and/or activated gesture activated. Think of it as the patient’s chart coming alive.  

Our Clinic of the Future gives human clinicians superpowers

With our partners, our ‘Clinic of the Future’ gives human clinicians superpowers. The system is a labor saver, it’s more accurate and enables doctors to synthesize information, so they see real-time vitals alongside recorded vitals. This technology builds on the benefit of continuous vital sign monitoring with our VITALITI™ vital sign monitor, which is vastly better for the patient than periodically taking vital signs. 

The Future of the Medical Metaverse and its Benefits 

Another exciting aspect of the medical Metaverse is the concept of bringing the same quality of medical care that you would get at a top-level teaching hospital anywhere on the entire planet. Today if you want to treat a patient with that same top level of quality, you’d have to transport them to the teaching hospital physically, often at great expense. With Cloud XR technology you could deliver that specialized care remotely with multiple clinicians collaborating around a virtual patient, in a virtual space – all in realistic 3D. It doesn’t matter if the patient is physically in front of you or in another country, on a ship at sea, on a battlefield or even in space.  

The Metaverse takes remote patient monitoring, virtual care and digital medicine to an entirely new level. Technology has the power to democratize and equalize the quality of care across many environments.  

In the next few years – sooner than we all expect - the Medical Metaverse has the potential to create great healthcare outcomes and make healthcare better for everyone.