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International Journal of Crowd Science 2023, 7(4): 190-199 https://doi.org/10.26599/IJCS.2023.9100020
Open Access | Issue | Published: 22 December 2023

Metaverse for Healthcare: Technologies, Challenges, and Vision

Show Author's Information Yihong Yang1,  Zhangbing Zhou1,2,3( ),  Xiaocui Li1,  Xiao Xue4,5,  Patrick C. K. Hung6,  Sami Yangui7
School of Information Engineering, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China
Frontiers Science Center for Deep-time Digital Earth, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China
Computer Science Department, TELECOM SudParis, Evry 91011, France
School of Computer Software, College of Intelligence and Computing, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
School of Computer Science and Technology, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo 454000, China
Faculty of Business and Information Technology, Ontario Tech University, Oshawa L1G0C5, Canada
LAAS-CNRS, University of Toulouse, Toulouse 31013, France
Keywords:
healthcare, vision, challenges, metaverse, application scenario, key technologies
Cite this article:
Yang Y, Zhou Z, Li X, et al. Metaverse for Healthcare: Technologies, Challenges, and Vision. International Journal of Crowd Science, 2023, 7(4): 190-199. https://doi.org/10.26599/IJCS.2023.9100020
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Abstract Full text About this article

The continuous enhancement of living conditions imposes higher requirements for medical and healthcare services. Although improved to a certain extent, there still exist critical challenges in current medical pattern, such as the shortage of medical resources, inefficient medical treatment, and limited medical technology level. The metaverse can offer a novel mechanism to address these problems in traditional healthcare domain, and thus, to enhance the quality of medical services. Generally, the metaverse is a dynamic feedback system that facilitates the collaboration and coexistence between the virtual and physical worlds. By fostering collaboration and evolution between intelligent agents in the virtual world, knowledge of this interdependence can be reconstructed in the digital realm. This allows problems existed in the real world to be abstracted and represented in the digital space, where models can be established and computational experiments can be conducted. The outcomes obtained can dynamically guide or control the execution of strategies in the real world, with real-world execution results serving as dynamic data inputs to continually update the virtual world’s model. In addition, this paper summarizes the current research status of different healthcare application scenarios for metaverse, highlights the challenges and vision, and aims to inspire further research in this field.


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About this article

Metaverse for Healthcare: Technologies, Challenges, and Vision

Show Author's information Yihong Yang1, Zhangbing Zhou1,2,3( ), Xiaocui Li1, Xiao Xue4,5, Patrick C. K. Hung6, Sami Yangui7
School of Information Engineering, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China
Frontiers Science Center for Deep-time Digital Earth, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China
Computer Science Department, TELECOM SudParis, Evry 91011, France
School of Computer Software, College of Intelligence and Computing, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
School of Computer Science and Technology, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo 454000, China
Faculty of Business and Information Technology, Ontario Tech University, Oshawa L1G0C5, Canada
LAAS-CNRS, University of Toulouse, Toulouse 31013, France

Abstract

The continuous enhancement of living conditions imposes higher requirements for medical and healthcare services. Although improved to a certain extent, there still exist critical challenges in current medical pattern, such as the shortage of medical resources, inefficient medical treatment, and limited medical technology level. The metaverse can offer a novel mechanism to address these problems in traditional healthcare domain, and thus, to enhance the quality of medical services. Generally, the metaverse is a dynamic feedback system that facilitates the collaboration and coexistence between the virtual and physical worlds. By fostering collaboration and evolution between intelligent agents in the virtual world, knowledge of this interdependence can be reconstructed in the digital realm. This allows problems existed in the real world to be abstracted and represented in the digital space, where models can be established and computational experiments can be conducted. The outcomes obtained can dynamically guide or control the execution of strategies in the real world, with real-world execution results serving as dynamic data inputs to continually update the virtual world’s model. In addition, this paper summarizes the current research status of different healthcare application scenarios for metaverse, highlights the challenges and vision, and aims to inspire further research in this field.

Keywords: healthcare, vision, challenges, metaverse, application scenario, key technologies

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Publication history
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Publication history

Received: 21 June 2023
Revised: 02 September 2023
Accepted: 18 September 2023
Published: 22 December 2023
Issue date: December 2023

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© The author(s) 2024.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the “Deep-Time Digital Earth” Science and Technology Leading Talents Team Funds for the Central Universities for the Frontiers Science Center for Deep-time Digital Earth, China University of Geosciences (Beijing) (Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2652023001)), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 42050103 and 62372420).

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