A scoping review of metaverse in emergency medicine

Abstract

Background

Interest in the metaverse has been growing worldwide as the virtual environment provides opportunities for highly immersive and interactive experiences. Metaverse has gradually gained acceptance in the medical field with the advancement of technologies such as big data, the Internet of Things, and 5 G mobile networks. The demand for and development of metaverse are different in diverse subspecialties owing to patients with varying degrees of clinical disease. Hence, we aim to explore the application of metaverse in acute medicine by reviewing published studies and the clinical management of patients.

Method

Our review examined the published articles about the concept of metaverse roadmap, and four additional domains were extracted: education, prehospital and disaster medicine, diagnosis and treatment application, and administrative affairs.

Results

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) integration have broad applications in education and clinical training. VR-related studies surpassed AR-related studies in the emergency medicine field. The metaverse roadmap revealed that lifelogging and mirror world are still developing fields of the metaverse.

Conclusion

Our findings provide insight into the features, application, development, and potential of a metaverse in emergency medicine. This study will enable emergency care systems to be better equipped to face future challenges.