For decades, the delivery of healthcare was only possible in person, between a patient and a doctor, starting from diagnosis and receiving medical treatment to performing surgical procedures for the patient. These days, telehealth services are on the surge, along with disruptive technologies that are transforming the delivery of care.

Imagine a patient of tomorrow, Sarah. Sarah is a 24-year-old woman who needs a procedure that is not commonly practiced in her country of residence. By leveraging immersive technology, Sarah would be able to talk and collaborate with doctors all around the world. As doctors plan ahead by looking into Sarah’s patient profile, they would be able to derive better clinical outcomes and decide what is best for her. These technologies fall within the realm of the metaverse and along with blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens, these technologies collectively form the world of Web3.

The term Web3 was coined by Gavin Wood, one of the founders of Ethereum in 2014. In this piece, let’s explore the impact of Web3 in the “New Era of Healthcare”.

What is Web3? Before moving on to how Web3 can revolutionize healthcare, let’s cover a few definitions.

Web3 is a version of Internet protocols organized around individuals, rather than centralized companies. This infrastructure is based on open-source software and maintained by an open community of contributors. Web3 initiatives use blockchain-based tokens to allow an aligned digital community to share a platform’s ownership, access and governance. Today, the concept of Web3 is set out to drastically improve how we deliver and pay for healthcare. On one hand, healthcare is moving towards patient-centred healthcare. On the other hand, web3 is decentralizing data by transferring ownership to the individual. Both forces combined are creating a combustive shift in healthcare.

One component of Web3 is the metaverse: a parallel reality or visual representation of reality. In the past, virtual representations were experienced through augmented reality, virtual reality or mixed reality using different devices. The key difference is that with web3, these virtual worlds are persistent with the use of tokens and ownership of spaces.

The primary technology enabling the shift to Web3 is blockchain. Blockchains are distributed and encrypted databases that allow data to be stored and transferred securely in a way that allows no one other than the owner of the data to tamper with. This is done through immutable ledgers.

The third pillar of the Web3 revolution is NFTs. NFTs are non-fungible, irreplaceable tokens, also known as unique digital certificates, registered on a blockchain, and used to record ownership of an asset.

Now that we have established the definitions, let’s explore how Web3 can transform the healthcare industry.

Surgical Operations and Web3 Currently, surgeons use technologies such as AR, VR, AI and minimally invasive surgeries for augmenting patient outcomes. Leading hospitals and universities use these technologies for surgeries because they provide a 3D view of a patient’s body, help interpret surgical plans and perform procedures. However, AR and VR alone are not sufficient to make appropriate clinical decisions. VR systems are limited to specific clinical settings and mobile VRs offer pocket-size immersions. Here is where the metaverse comes into play.

Imagine patient Sarah again. To understand how her procedure will be performed, doctors can create a digital twin of Sarah. 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; in this case, patient Sarah. This digital twin can act as a “test dummy” to predict everything from Sarah’s surgery to the reactions she will have to specific medications, all the way to the most suitable surgical pathway. The final outcome is that the collective care team can make better clinical decisions and perform procedures with reduced risk.

Doctors can also collaborate with surgeons in different locations who are invited into the metaverse of Sarah’s care room. This is where it gets interesting. To cure Sarah’s rare disease, global experts could be invited into Sarah’s care space to provide novel therapies or treatment outcomes. If those suggestions are successful, the experts from around the globe would be compensated in a cryptographic token for helping in Sarah’s recovery.

No alt text provided for this image Patient Data and Web3 In today’s healthcare, data is often shared between multiple organizations in a way that is both inefficient and opaque as far as the owners of that data are concerned. The fact that health records are usually stored on centralized servers means that our data is at risk of being stolen or mishandled.

Data security is more important now than ever as medical data expands exponentially. The doubling time was an estimated 50 years back in 1950. It accelerated to 7 years in 1980, 3.5 years in 2010 and a projected 73 days in 2020, according to a study in Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association.

With blockchain integrated into healthcare, patients can now own their data. Patients of tomorrow can have their data decentralized with secured encryption and cryptography. If Sarah wants a particular doctor or hospital to perform her procedure, she can share her accurate data, including her medical history, with concerned people at her own will. Interaction recorded in blockchain coupled with cryptocurrency can clear payments that utilize Sarah’s data effectively. Sarah can even receive compensation for the use of data, which then reduces the healthcare cost burden on her.

Can Patients Monetize Their Healthcare? Let’s imagine that, through the metaverse, doctors have succeeded at performing Sarah’s procedure with improved accuracy. Can Sarah help others like her going through the same journey? If Sarah’s healthcare data and journey were minted or stamped as a single or range of NFTs, she could choose to share her data on platforms that could be the web 3.0 version of “patients like me.” Minting NFTs, in this case, is the process of taking Sarah’s healthcare record and converting it into a digital asset stored on the blockchain. Security would not be a concern since NFTs come with the inherent feature of traceability. Sarah would be able to see where it ends up and hold those who used it without her permission accountable since she is the sole owner of her data, as certified by the NFT authentication.

With an NFT approach, companies offering digital health services could encourage patients to participate in studies by contributing their data and earning from it. Other third parties interested in utilizing the data for research or developing new products could reach out directly to patients on a digital marketplace. The main difference when compared to the traditional approach is that patients have agency and transparency when it comes to sharing their data.

Web3 will engender a radical change in the healthcare world. Patients of tomorrow would experience a world where healthcare data is decentralized, personalized and traced, ultimately leading to the transparency, accessibility and affordability of care.