Some of the brightest minds on the technological frontiers of medicine gathered for a ground-breaking Meta-meeting in Seoul to discuss a shared but fleeting value… how doctors and patients should easily be able to connect with minimal barriers.
The conference – wrangled by top neurosurgeon Dr Lee Eon (the man behind IBM’s oncology AI) – decided that it was time for a change to the lack of leadership that characterises medical innovations. And so came about a new council – the Metaverse Doctors Association (MDA) – to tackle the next revolution in medicine… the Metaverse.
“Who will take charge in the future? There are countries with good circumstances, but there are countries with extreme imbalances such as Chad and South Sudan,” opened Dr Eon (now chairman of the MDA).
“In that sense, the metaverse is meaningful – it can be an optimal platform… access, cost, and quality of treatment can all be captured through the metaverse, but the wrong distribution structure needs to be reformed, and a kind of ‘direct delivery’ must be made.”
Among the young doctors with big ideas, the old doctors with young minds, and fresh-faced medical students, stood a single blockchain company invited to participate in the genesis event – Solve.Care.
Solve.Care (and native SOLVE token) is a blockchain-technology company aimed at fundamentally addressing the overwhelming growth of medical data – brought about by electronic health records, clinical trials, mobile apps, wearables, health surveys – in a synthesised functional capacity.
In an exclusive interview, following up our revious conversation in 2019, Coin Rivet spoke to Solve.Care CEO Pradeep Goel about blockchain-based healthcare and the Metaverse Doctors Alliance.
“Blockchain technology in healthcare makes the administrative, care delivery, and payment processes more transparent. Similarly, blockchain technology allows the user or patient full autonomy over their data,” said the CEO.
“Overcrowding in hospitals worldwide is a problem that has been exacerbated due to the COVID-19 pandemic – Imagine how much time [and bed space] will be saved in the future, when a patient’s condition can be easily monitored from the comfort of their home?
“When it comes to medical devices, the integration of blockchain into the communications systems between the device and healthcare professionals will be key to the success of this change.”
So blockchain could bring about entirely new ways of encrypting patient data and enforcing compliance to medical standards in practices, processes, and devices. Combined with the potential of smart contract interactions for workload intensive procedures such as consent-giving and appointment booking – it’s clear there is a promising medical revolution afoot.
But what does this look like in practice?
“The metaverse brings the promise of a more equitable healthcare industry with possibilities such as virtual reality care with no barriers, avatars to protect patient privacy, clinical representations of patients, and an easier enforcing of physician rights,” explained Pradeep.
“However, it must be stated that it isn’t the case that all medical treatment and consultations should be completed on the metaverse.
“Rather, the metaverse can assist in addressing the demand and supply issue currently facing practitioners and patients. We want to create options, an efficient meeting place, and, in turn, remove the stages in which the process of consultation and diagnosis gets slowed down.”
And this is the important disjuncture between metaverse and physical healthcare – it’s about how much can be done for a patient before they’re sat in a clinic, something incredibly valuable in rural development paradigms especially. The MDA is planning to play a big leadership role in this shift in culture.
“The MDA is made up of the finest minds in cutting edge digital healthcare technology and is very well supported by the authorities in South Korea,” added Pradeep.
“I have every confidence that the MDA will pave the way in democratising healthcare through the metaverse not just in Korea, but the world.
“We believe that the metaverse is a natural evolution towards where digital healthcare is headed: that will allow patients easy access to medical care and vice versa. In the future, we envision patients and physicians being able to enter MetaClinics to have virtual consultations and other healthcare interactions, secured with blockchain technology.”
The metaverse is the obvious progression for much of Solve.Care’s current work – one such project operating through the blockchain-based Solve.Care app is GTHE – a decentralised telemedical network seeking to empower vetted physicians with a digital medical practice connected to a network of remote patients across Asia.
GTHE’s blockchain-based technical architecture enables all patient data to be securely held in a decentralised node network, with patients themselves retaining ownership and control of their medical records for the first time.
“On GTHE, doctors are fully sovereign and have full control over their medical practice,” highlighted Pradeep.
“Doctors determine and fix their own consultation charges, duration of consultations, and availability, giving them the freedom to work as much as they want, when they want. In addition, the automated features of GTHE eliminate the administrative burdens doctors are saddled within traditional practice.
“In addition to patients in India, patients from Bangladesh, Bahrain, Brazil, Kenya, Kuwait, Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, and UAE can also access Indian registered doctors through GTHE for consultations.”
Future plans include the scaling of the Solve.Care app to attract a global user-base and more exciting blockchain medical projects.
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