Avatar-Doctor Confidentiality: The 1st Metaverse Hospital Is Set To Rise In The UAE

Your avatar can now do the slack for you if you feel too weak to stand up and see a doctor.

A medical facility in the metaverse is set to be launched in the United Arab Emirates in the coming months to enable patients to consult with physicians and get treatment using avatars.

Healthcare company Thumbay Group will spearhead the groundbreaking rites for UAE’s first hospital in the metaverse this coming October, a senior official disclosed on Wednesday.

This facility will be a fully functional virtual hospital where the patients can visit using a customized digital representation of themselves in a computer-generated 3D world.

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Only You, Your Avatar And The Doctor

It will all be about your avatar doing the work, virtually, which means less physical movement (getting stuck in traffic, included) and nobody touching any part of your body to know what’s wrong with you.

Indeed, the undertaking sounds a bit far-off, but it seems like there’s always a new kind of enterprise taking shape in the metaverse these days: clothing store, real estate offices, footwear brands, concert halls, soccer stadiums, new avatars and even weddings. Name it, the metaverse will have it.

Your avatar will soon be the one interacting with doctors. Image: Aimedis

The Thumbay Group said they will focus on long-term care for patients, especially those who are permanently incapacitated. The company provides bedridden patients with augmented reality and virtual reality metaverse devices so they can communicate with doctors from the comfort of their own homes.

Thumbay Group has hired a specialist to teach all of its physicians on how to interact with patients in the soon-to-be-constructed medical center.

Treatment & Consultation In Virtual Reality

The vice president of Thumbay Group, Akbar Moideen Thumbay, stated that the company is integrating artificial intelligence into the hospital’s system, where cameras will be installed to monitor patients’ license plate numbers and faces each time they enter the hospital.

Metaverse hardware consists of extended reality (XR) devices, microchips, sensors, and other cutting-edge components.

Expensive high-speed networking, enormous storage space, powerful computers  and headgear are required to experience the metaverse in the most realistic and entertaining manner.

These metaverse gadgets use more complex technology to create a virtual environment with a realistic appearance, hence increasing their expenses.

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UAE Poised To Become A Metaverse Powerhouse

Regarding consultation rates, which the company has not yet disclosed, they will likely be comparable to the average teleconsultation fee charged by healthcare providers,  Thumbay said.

Meanwhile, Dubai has just established a task force to monitor metaverse developments and opportunities.

By 2030, the booming metropolis anticipates that the metaverse will contribute to the gross domestic product and add more than $4 billion to its economy.  The virtualization of 42,000 jobs is also projected as a result of this plan.

Under the leadership of the UAE Ministry of Health and Community Protection, the first metaverse-enabled customer service center was established in Dubai in January of 2021.

The UAE intends to become a major player in the virtual space and is designing a regulatory and legislative foundation for the billion-dollar sector.

Featured image from Acceleration Economy, chart from TradingView.com