What are the application scenarios of meta-cosmic medicine? The surgeon said so

On March 30, the shanghai organizing committee working meeting of the first global meta-universe conference was held online, discussing topics including meta-universe standards and meta-universe digital health. Du Zhengping, Chief Digital Officer of China Mobile Communications Federation, said: "With the development and maturity of the metacosm, it will form the first digital world vision at the level of a community of human destiny for the construction of a digital society in the future. ”

In healthcare, China's first Meta-Cosmic Medicine Alliance (IAMM) was founded in Shanghai last month. The immersive experience of the metaverse is receiving great attention from medical fields such as surgery, and related applications are also being developed. In this regard, a number of surgeons told the first financial reporter that the metacosm will have great application prospects in surgery.

Digital advantages in surgical scenarios

Liu Jianmin, director of the Department of Neurosurgery of Changhai Hospital, told the first financial reporter: "There will be huge application space in the field of meta-cosmic medicine, especially in the future of surgery, especially for neurosurgery and vascular surgery, which will have great application prospects, including simulation before surgery and the formulation of surgical plans. ”

He further explained that in the future, with the help of the platform of the metaverse, through the integration of images, the range that doctors can "see" goes beyond the real details of the operation itself, and can "see" the structure of nerves and blood vessels from multiple angles in the anatomical space. "This is especially important in surgery and will be an important trend in neurosurgery." Liu Jianmin told the first financial reporter.

Professor Qu Lefeng, director of the Department of Vascular Surgery of Changzheng Hospital, told the first financial reporter: "Vascular surgery is a relatively new profession, and now more than 90% of the surgeries are minimally invasive treatments, and under the guidance of images such as DSA angiography, surgical operations are carried out under the guidance of images such as DSA. ”

Qu Lefeng said that he hopes that some pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers can also participate in the research and development of meta-universe medicine, invest in related information technology in advance, and jointly promote the development of the industry.

The results of a "White Paper on The Future Doctor" released by Elsevier, an information analysis company that owns top medical academic journals such as The Lancet and Cell, showed that in the next decade, digital information technology will be deeply integrated with medical treatment, and digital medical technology will provide important support for the diagnosis and treatment decisions of medical staff.

Dr Yixin Yao, Chief Medical Officer of Elsevier Greater China, told First Financial: "Today's technological developments have enabled augmented reality (AR) and virtual implementation (VR) to be integrated and entered into preclinical research, surgery and medical education scenarios. The electronicization of the modern medical system puts forward all-round requirements for infrastructure construction, and the metacosm provides a feasible infrastructure platform for building modern medical care and even future medical care. ”

Among the multiple digital technologies involved in relation to the concept of a metacosm, big data and artificial intelligence have attracted much attention. Elsevier survey data shows that 80% of the respondents in the world believe that big data will be deeply integrated into population health management, and the continuous accumulation of information collected after the interconnection of scientific research data, electronic cases and medical devices will help doctors formulate more accurate diagnosis and treatment plans and improve decision-making efficiency. Globally, 56% of healthcare workers surveyed believe that doctors will use more AI-assisted clinical decision-making tools to make decisions, enabling more accurate and scientific diagnosis and treatment.

In the mixed reality assisted care scenario, for example, Medtronic, the world's largest medical device company, has partnered with augmented reality (AR) startup Clinical Theatre on a program to provide neurosurgeons with a way to test their surgical strategies before entering the operating room and use AR to provide surgeons with a real-time 3D view of the surgery during surgery for better navigation.

Telemedicine is expected to change the doctor-patient relationship

The "White Paper on Future Doctors" also shows that Chinese medical staff are more open and optimistic about the application and innovation of digital technology, and their recognition in many aspects such as integrating electronic medical records to promote medical informatization construction, artificial intelligence technology to provide clinical decision support, and personalized diagnosis and treatment based on big data is more than 10% higher than the global average. In addition, 92% of Chinese clinical care workers surveyed believe that with the increasing importance of personalized treatment plans and big data, clinical research will be better integrated with clinical practice.

In addition, diversified medical scenarios also pose new challenges to the capabilities of medical staff. With the deep integration of digital technology and medical means and the overall improvement of patients' health literacy, diversified medical and health service models can provide convenience for doctors and patients and improve the efficiency of diagnosis and treatment. Globally, 63% of healthcare workers surveyed believe that telemedicine will further dominate in the future.

Yao Yixin told the first financial reporter that the meta-universe provides a new platform, for the current medical resources have not yet met the needs of patients across the country, on the one hand may make up for the problem of uneven distribution of resources, on the other hand, the doctors to express empathy and care put forward higher requirements, will greatly affect the doctor-patient relationship in the new era.

"Metacosm provides the possibility of breaking down the temporal and spatial barriers of medical treatment, using stronger computing power to improve the ability of doctors to provide medical services to patients in different regions, and also provides young doctors with the ability to learn from experienced doctors in different regions." Yao Yixin told the first financial reporter.

Last year, Digital Me was named one of Gartner's most important emerging technology trends. In healthcare, this concept points to the intersection of brain-computer interfaces (BMI) and digital twin technologies. At present, industrial information giants including IBM, Siemens, Dassault Systèmes and others have developed digital twin technologies for commercial applications.

At this month's South by Southwest (SXSW) Innovation Conference in the United States, a startup called Proto showcased its interactive holographic communication platform, which has been applied to the medical field. In a demonstration video, the School of Health Professions and Sciences at the University of Florida in the United States uses the technology to "send" a doctor from Australia to a Florida medical classroom, teaching clinical skills to medical students to help diagnose Parkinson's disease patients and their physical therapy, among others.

Proto has also introduced a version of a desktop holographic communication platform for office or home use that can obtain important information about a patient's biometrics and then "send" a doctor to a patient's home to provide a diagnosis. This technology based on the digital twin platform has great significance in the home scenario of the epidemic.

According to a report by EY, a start-up from the UK is building an immersive 3D platform that hopes to create a meta-universe platform for doctors and patients, where doctors do remote diagnosis and treatment through the metacosmity platform, and patients use these platforms to contribute some of their own medical data and thus obtain some digital assets.

Guan Wenjun, Partner and Head of Digital Innovation, Partner and Digital Innovation, Greater China, told First Financial Reporter: "The application of AR, VR, MR and other equipment in medical training scenarios has begun to land. For example, a startup used Microsoft's Mesh platform and HoloLens hardware to help a global Pharmaceutical company in China train medical devices, whereas in the past it used to be necessary to buy a large number of second-hand devices and train only one or two doctors at a time. The efficiency of the entire system is now greatly improved, and the maximum number of trainees can be covered. ”