 Did I tie it all together for you yet? Are you with me? I know this is crazy. This is confusing, but take each of those three core technologies, converge them into one of that is the metaverse. Welcome back to the channel, everybody. For those of you who are new around here, my name is Michael AKA Dr. Chalini and I'm a board certified diagnostic and interventional radiologist in New Jersey. All right. So this video may get like five views, but the metaverse is all the rage these days. And given how popular it is, it might be here to stay. There's a lot of potential to revolutionize socializing, entertainment, work and even commerce. The metaverse is essentially integrating into every single aspect of our life in the healthcare sector is not exempt. Since there isn't a lot of talk out there about how the healthcare system can be transformed by the metaverse, I think it's only appropriate that we talked about it on today's video. So let's get into it. All right. So if you're still watching the video after I mentioned the metaverse, multiple times now, thank you. And hang tight because Johnnie had interesting going for it. And for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about when I talked about the metaverse, let's go ahead and start here and answer the most important question of all, what is the metaverse? Well, there isn't one definition to describe the metaverse, which is the reason it is so confusing for so many people. However, one way to think about it is that the metaverse is essentially the next version of the internet or internet 2.0. The metaverse or the next version of the internet will take advantage of augmented reality, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and networking like 5G. The reason for all of this is to create online environments that are more immersive, experiential and interactive than what we currently have today. So if you're still confused, hang in there. Yeah, that's right. This is incredibly important. The metaverse is essentially a combination or convergence of three major technological trends, which will all have immersive potential to impact health care both separately and together. Together, these technological trends have the ability to create new channels for delivering care that has the ability to decrease costs and improve patient care. What are these technological trends that I speak of? Well, there are three main technological trends that we're going to touch on today. One, telepresence. And I know you're already like, what the heck is he talking about? Telepresence in another way is essentially allowing people to be together virtually when they are physically apart. Sounds very sci-fi. Number two, digital twinning. Number three, blockchain technology, which I'm sure you all have heard of. All right. So I know I'm probably losing a lot of people so far, but let's try to break down each one of these three technological trends. And we'll start with the first one, telepresence. In health care, we call telepresence, telemedicine, or the ability to provide care remotely. Now, I'm sure you've heard of telemedicine as it has had an enormous surge amongst the pandemic, and you may have even heard of large companies like Teladoc or TDoc, which their stock surged in the pandemic and ultimately crashed down pretty heavily recently. I mean, just look at this stock chart. However, before the pandemic, only 43% of health care facilities were able to see patients remotely. Today, that number is up to 95%. And that's all thanks to the pandemic. The pandemic brought about multiple good changes, and this was definitely one of them. But realistically, though, does every single doctor's appointment require a physical exam or to have both parties present? The answer is no, which is why there is telemedicine today. Telemedicine allows physicians and other providers to see multiple patients and treat minor conditions, which allows both patients and doctors to streamline the visits. And let me just tell you, telemedicine will certainly expand in the metaverse. For one, virtual reality will likely become a key technology in the metaverse, especially as it pertains to telemedicine. It'll allow for next level immersion and open up a different realm of possibilities. Virtual reality allows patients to not be limited by certain physicians in their area and be treated by essentially any physician across the world. There will no longer be that physician limitation based off of location. If you need to find the best specialist for your particular condition, and say you live in a small town in Alaska, and your specialist happens to be in New York City, just throw on your VR headset and you're both in the same room. Oh my God, you got freckles on your nose. I have freckles in real life too. This is particularly good for people who live in areas that have poor access to care, not to mention specialists. Virtual reality can be even more helpful in therapy. Metaverse environments can be customized for each individual patient. And just as an example of something that's already being used in practice, psychologists and psychiatrists are already using virtual reality for aversion therapy. These clinicians can monitor patients interacting in very stressful environments that are customized for those individual patients. And those environments are safe because they are virtual and they're monitored closely by those clinicians. Okay, so hopefully I haven't bored you to tears yet. I know this stuff can be very dry. It's very complicated. And if you're not interested in technology, this is probably very boring for you. However, this will likely be a part of our life going forward, so you gotta talk about it and you just gotta bear with me. Okay, so now let's talk about the second digital trend. Also known as the digital twin, which sounds super sci-fi, I know, but let's dive into it. A digital twin is a virtual model or simulation of any object, process, or system generated using real-world data for the purpose of learning more about its real-world counterpart. Okay, I may have lost you there, but let's rewind the definition. So I'm gonna read it straight from the actual article here. A digital twin is a virtual model or simulation of any object, process, or system generated using real-world data for the purpose of learning more about its real-world counterpart. All right, maybe we can put that up on the screen because I know you're going to be confused by it. So if we just leave it here, you can read it multiple times and you'll get it a little more after I go into more details. When we're talking about the metaverse here, the digital twin can actually be the patient themself. And I think it's cool here, the CEO of Lattice Health, which is a big health technology company that's big into this space. The CEO put it this way. Think of it as having something akin to a test dummy that can be used to predict everything from how we will recover from surgery or to the reactions that we will have to specific medicines. Literally, it's like having a test dummy that you can practice things on or trial things on ourselves to see how we will react prior to even doing it. I know this is becoming extra sci-fi because you're essentially saying, Michael, you're telling me that in the metaverse, I'm going to have a digital twin that I can essentially practice and give medications to and know the outcomes of everything without actually doing it to myself. Sounds crazy, but... This to be our future. The way this will all come about is how we have further advances in genetics and learn more about genetic mapping for each individual. The CEO of that same company, Lattice Health, also had this to say, we'll be able to fast forward so if we age the twin by 10 years based on the interventions we're currently doing, we'll be able to see how the digital twin was affected. This is like being able to see into the future. And this is the point that I actually kind of start getting a little scared because it sounds kind of like iRobot kind of stuff. But hey, I'm here for it. I'm sure people had this to say about the internet when we first started talking about that and we're completely dependent on it now. I'm afraid that if I subscribed to something like internet, I would get hooked and I would never spend time with my family. Okay, maybe we can talk about the third technology which may be a little more of your alleys because I'm sure you've heard about it with all the cryptocurrencies and that is the blockchain technology. Like I said, most of you have probably heard this as it relates to cryptocurrencies and essentially I'll read off the definition here. Blockchains are essentially just encrypted databases that allow data to be stored and transferred securely in a way that nobody but the data owner can tamper with. In healthcare, the most obvious use of blockchain technology would be to secure and manage health data. Currently our health information is stored very inefficiently in multiple central organizations. And it's essentially closed off to the actual owner, aka us. Apparently these healthcare records are stored in some centralized server which means the data is at risk for being stolen. And apparently, according to the article I was reading, the resale value of a single health record on the dark web goes for around $70 to $100 which I have no way of really verifying but that fact is there so take it with a grain of salt. Also I have no idea how to get on the dark web or really what the dark web is so maybe someone who does can comment below. It's a little beyond my little brain. Don't know what that hand thing was. Furthermore, the way our healthcare data is currently stored makes it extremely difficult to transfer from clinician to clinician or physician's office to physician's office. I'm not sure if you all know this but the way a lot of hospitals still transfer their data is via fax machine. That's right, we receive faxes from other doctor's offices and get health information that way which is absolutely crazy. A lot of you probably don't even know what a fax machine is. I'll put a picture of one up here so you actually have seen a fax machine now and know what it does. It's short for facsimile. It's a way of sending a paper copy over the phone line I think. I don't even know how they worked because it's so antiquated. But that's what we use even in my practice. Since my specialty is primarily outpatient based, any patient who needs an outpatient procedure has to have their information faxed to us and then we have to print it out. Well, I guess the fax machine prints it out. We have it on paper. Then we look at the patient's information and do the procedure based off that information. That's crazy. That's how antiquated healthcare is and this is why blockchain technology can be so useful in our field. Blockchain is a way more efficient way of storing and transferring health data securely. So now that we've broken down these three core technologies individually, if you think about the convergence of all of these technologies in an online environment, that is the metaverse. Did I tie it all together for you yet? Are you with me? I know this is crazy, this is confusing, but take each of those three core technologies, converge them into one, that is the metaverse. It's that simple. I believe the metaverse is the next chapter for the internet. In the metaverse, healthcare professionals will be able to join together and deliver better healthcare in a more efficient manner without all the red tape that currently exists in a lot of healthcare systems. You'll have the ability to quickly share information amongst each other. Patient compliance can be tracked easier, which can further assist in diagnosing and treating illness. In another aspect of the metaverse that's fascinating are virtual hospitals. Literally a virtual reality hospital environment. You no longer need a real hospital. Well, maybe, I don't know. Say someone comes in your office with a damaged shoulder joint. You can use camera and motion to analyze those joints and give better data to patients that help track progress of them getting better. One cool example I found when doing the research for this video is in the physiotherapy space. Say you have someone come into your office with a shoulder injury that you need to rehab. You can use cameras and motion to analyze the damaged joints and track the progress easily. And you can even give feedback on that progress that you probably wouldn't be able to detect otherwise. Say a patient was receiving physical therapy on that joint and say the range of motion improved like 3%, which is a good thing, but it's small enough where the patient probably wouldn't be able to notice it. With the technology, you can actually track that progress and it'll help the patient see their improvement. Look, I know the metaverse is a crazy concept, but it'll likely be incorporated more and more into our daily lives. And healthcare is no exception. It's innovations like these that can help improve access to care and continue to improve the future of our healthcare system. And if you made it this far, you are officially a trooper. Make sure you comment meta, M-E-T-A in all caps for the metaverse. So I know who the troopers are and who made it to the end of this video because I know it was tough, but you bear with me. You stood by me and I appreciate it. Please hit that like and subscribe button. There's a lot of lurkers out there. Watch these videos and don't subscribe yet. So subscribe, it's super easy. It's free. Make sure you follow me on TikTok and Instagram if you don't already. And of course, I'll see you all on the next video. Bye.