MetaBlock: A Revolutionary System for Healthcare Industry Fusing Metaverse and Blockchain

Year 2024, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 116 - 125

Shamama Anwar , Adla Sanober

https://doi.org/10.57019/jmv.1513886

Abstract

The Metaverse is like another world functioning parallel to the actual physical world. It merges physical reality with digital virtuality by the convergence of different technologies that enable interactions with virtual objects and environment. The complete immersive experience with metaverse generates huge data which comes with its own set of challenges, a major one being the security and storage of user centric data. Considerably, blockchain offers a significant solution due to its exceptional features of decentralization, immutability, and transparency. For a detailed insight into the role of blockchain in the metaverse, the paper explores its usage in the healthcare industry. The paper then proposes a healthcare system named MetaBlock that is a fusion of both the metaverse and blockchain techniques. The paper discusses the components of the system from a detailed technical interpretation, such as data acquisition, data storage, virtual object and space simulation, data sharing and data privacy protection. Finally, an important research direction in terms of distributed consensus mechanism is discussed.

Keywords

Healthcare, Blockchain, Metaverse, Immutability, Distributed Consensus

References

• Mystakidis, S. (2022). Metaverse. Encyclopedia, 2(1), 486-497. Doi: 10.3390/encyclopedia2010031
• Slater, M., & Sanchez-Vives, M. V. (2016). Enhancing our lives with immersive virtual reality. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 3, 74. Doi: 10.3389/frobt.2016.00074
• Klopfer, E. (2008). Augmented learning: Research and design of mobile educational games. MIT press
• Speicher, M., Hall, B. D., & Nebeling, M. (2019, May). What is mixed reality?. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1-15). Doi: 10.1145/3290605.3300767
• Çöltekin, A., Lochhead, I., Madden, M., Christophe, S., Devaux, A., Pettit, C., ... & Hedley, N. (2020). Extended reality in spatial sciences: A review of research challenges and future directions. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 9(7), 439. Doi: 10.3390/ijgi9070439
• Bourlon, S., & Boton, C. (2019). Automating the integration of 4D models in game engines for a virtual reality-based construction simulation. In Cooperative Design, Visualization, and Engineering: 16th International Conference, CDVE 2019, Mallorca, Spain, October 6–9, 2019, Proceedings 16 (pp. 123-132). Springer International Publishing. Doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-30949-7_14
• Cross, J., Boag-Hodgson, C., Ryley, T., Mavin, T. J., & Potter, L. E. (2022). Using extended reality in flight simulators: a literature review. IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics, 29(9), 3961-3975. Doi: 10.1109/TVCG.2022.3173921
• Helzel, K. P. (2019). Supporting enhanced disaster management with interactive 3D and Mixed Reality Maps (Doctoral dissertation, Master Thesis]. Technical University of Munich).
• Doolani, S., Wessels, C., Kanal, V., Sevastopoulos, C., Jaiswal, A., Nambiappan, H., & Makedon, F. (2020). A review of extended reality (xr) technologies for manufacturing training. Technologies, 8(4), 77. Doi: 10.3390/technologies8040077
• Logeswaran, A., Munsch, C., Chong, Y. J., Ralph, N., & McCrossnan, J. (2021). The role of extended reality technology in healthcare education: Towards a learner-centred approach. Future healthcare journal, 8(1), e79-e84. Doi: 10.7861/fhj.2020-0112
• Andrews, C., Southworth, M. K., Silva, J. N., & Silva, J. R. (2019). Extended reality in medical practice. Current treatment options in cardiovascular medicine, 21, 1-12. Doi: 10.1007/s11936-019-0722-7
• Zwoliński, G., Kamińska, D., Laska-Leśniewicz, A., Haamer, R. E., Vairinhos, M., Raposo, R., ... & Reisinho, P. (2022). Extended reality in education and training: Case studies in management education. Electronics, 11(3), 336. Doi: 10.3390/electronics11030336
• Slater, M., Gonzalez-Liencres, C., Haggard, P., Vinkers, C., Gregory-Clarke, R., Jelley, S., ... & Silver, J. (2020). The ethics of realism in virtual and augmented reality. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 1, 512449. Doi: 10.3389/frvir.2020.00001
• Chesney, T., Coyne, I., Logan, B., & Madden, N. (2009). Griefing in virtual worlds: causes, casualties and coping strategies. Information Systems Journal, 19(6), 525-548. Doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2575.2009.00330.x
• Golf-Papez, M., Heller, J., Hilken, T., Chylinski, M., de Ruyter, K., Keeling, D. I., & Mahr, D. (2022). Embracing falsity through the metaverse: The case of synthetic customer experiences. Business Horizons, 65(6), 739-749. Doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2022.07.007
• Christopoulos, A., Mystakidis, S., Pellas, N., & Laakso, M. J. (2021). ARLEAN: An augmented reality learning analytics ethical framework. Computers, 10(8), 92. Doi: 10.3390/computers10080092
• Gadekallu, T. R., Huynh-The, T., Wang, W., Yenduri, G., Ranaweera, P., Pham, Q. V., ... & Liyanage, M. (2022). Blockchain for the metaverse: A review. arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.09738. Doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2203.09738
• Gadekallu, T. R., Pham, Q. V., Nguyen, D. C., Maddikunta, P. K. R., Deepa, N., Prabadevi, B., ... & Hwang, W. J. (2021). Blockchain for edge of things: Applications, opportunities, and challenges. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 9(2), 964-988. Neal Stephenson. Snow crash: A novel. Spectra, 2003. Doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2021.3119639
• Kumar, S., Chhugani, J., Kim, C., Kim, D., Nguyen, A., Dubey, P., ... & Kim, Y. (2008). Second life and the new generation of virtual worlds. Computer, 41(9), 46-53. Doi: 10.1109/MC.2008.398
• Jeon, H. J., Youn, H. C., Ko, S. M., & Kim, T. H. (2022). Blockchain and AI Meet in the Metaverse. Advances in the Convergence of Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence, 73(10.5772), 73-82.
• Yang, Q., Zhao, Y., Huang, H., Xiong, Z., Kang, J., & Zheng, Z. (2022). Fusing blockchain and AI with metaverse: A survey. IEEE Open Journal of the Computer Society, 3, 122-136. Doi: 10.1109/OJCS.2022.3188249
• Mozumder, M. A. I., Sheeraz, M. M., Athar, A., Aich, S., & Kim, H. C. (2022, February). Overview: Technology roadmap of the future trend of metaverse based on IoT, blockchain, AI technique, and medical domain metaverse activity. In 2022 24th International Conference on Advanced Communication Technology (ICACT) (pp. 256-261). IEEE. Microsoft Hololens2. Microsoft hololens2, 2022. Doi: 10.23919/ICACT53585.2022.9728808
• Desselle, M. R., Brown, R. A., James, A. R., Midwinter, M. J., Powell, S. K., & Woodruff, M. A. (2020). Augmented and virtual reality in surgery. Computing in Science & Engineering, 22(3), 18-26. Doi: 10.1109/MCSE.2020.2972822
• Penza, V., Soriero, D., Barresi, G., Pertile, D., Scabini, S., & Mattos, L. S. (2020). The GPS for surgery: A user‐centered evaluation of a navigation system for laparoscopic surgery. The International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery, 16(5), 1-13. Doi: 10.1002/rcs.2119
• Aulisio, M. C., Han, D. Y., & Glueck, A. C. (2020). Virtual reality gaming as a neurorehabilitation tool for brain injuries in adults: A systematic review. Brain injury, 34(10), 1322-1330. Doi: 10.1080/02699052.2020.1802779
• Dedeilia, A., Sotiropoulos, M. G., Hanrahan, J. G., Janga, D., Dedeilias, P., & Sideris, M. (2020). Medical and surgical education challenges and innovations in the COVID-19 era: a systematic review. In vivo, 34(3 suppl), 1603-1611. Doi: 10.21873/invivo.11950
• Thomason, J. (2021). Metahealth-how will the metaverse change health care?. Journal of Metaverse, 1(1), 13-16.
• Chen, D., & Zhang, R. (2022). Exploring research trends of emerging technologies in health metaverse: A bibliometric analysis. Available at SSRN 3998068. Doi: 10.2139/ssrn.3998068
• Martin, C., & Leurent, H. (2017, March). Technology and innovation for the future of production: Accelerating value creation. In World Economic Forum (pp. 1-38).
• Azaria, A., Ekblaw, A., Vieira, T., & Lippman, A. (2016, August). Medrec: Using blockchain for medical data access and permission management. In 2016 2nd international conference on open and big data (OBD) (pp. 25-30). IEEE. Doi: 10.1109/OBD.2016.11
• Ekblaw, A., Azaria, A., Halamka, J. D., & Lippman, A. (2016, August). A Case Study for Blockchain in Healthcare:“MedRec” prototype for electronic health records and medical research data. In Proceedings of IEEE open & big data conference (Vol. 13, p. 13).
• Zhang, P., White, J., Schmidt, D. C., Lenz, G., & Rosenbloom, S. T. (2018). FHIRChain: applying blockchain to securely and scalably share clinical data. Computational and structural biotechnology journal, 16, 267-278. Doi: 10.1016/j.csbj.2018.07.004
• Xia, Q. I., Sifah, E. B., Asamoah, K. O., Gao, J., Du, X., & Guizani, M. (2017). MeDShare: Trust-less medical data sharing among cloud service providers via blockchain. IEEE access, 5, 14757-14767. Doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2017.2730843
• Fan, K., Wang, S., Ren, Y., Li, H., & Yang, Y. (2018). Medblock: Efficient and secure medical data sharing via blockchain. Journal of medical systems, 42, 1-11. Doi: 10.1007/s10916-018-0993-7
• Jiang, S., Cao, J., Wu, H., Yang, Y., Ma, M., & He, J. (2018, June). Blochie: a blockchain-based platform for healthcare information exchange. In 2018 ieee international conference on smart computing (smartcomp) (pp. 49-56). IEEE. Doi: 10.1109/SMARTCOMP.2018.00073.
• Dagher, G. G., Mohler, J., Milojkovic, M., & Marella, P. B. (2018). Ancile: Privacy-preserving framework for access control and interoperability of electronic health records using blockchain technology. Sustainable cities and society, 39, 283-297. Doi: 10.1016/j.scs.2018.02.014
• Roehrs, A., Da Costa, C. A., & da Rosa Righi, R. (2017). OmniPHR: A distributed architecture model to integrate personal health records. Journal of biomedical informatics, 71, 70-81. Doi: 10.1016/j.jbi.2017.05.012
• McGhin, T., Choo, K. K. R., Liu, C. Z., & He, D. (2019). Blockchain in healthcare applications: Research challenges and opportunities. Journal of network and computer applications, 135, 62-75. Doi: 10.1016/j.jnca.2019.02.027
• Namasudra, S., & Deka, G. C. (Eds.). (2021). Applications of blockchain in healthcare (Vol. 83). Singapore: Springer.
• Siyal, A. A., Junejo, A. Z., Zawish, M., Ahmed, K., Khalil, A., & Soursou, G. (2019). Applications of blockchain technology in medicine and healthcare: Challenges and future perspectives. Cryptography, 3(1), 3. Doi: 10.3390/cryptography3010003
• Sanober, A., & Anwar, S. (2022, March). Blockchain for content protection in E-healthcare: A case study for COVID-19. In 2022 8th International Conference on Advanced Computing and Communication Systems (ICACCS) (Vol. 1, pp. 661-666). IEEE. Doi: 10.1109/ICACCS54159.2022.9785182
• Zhang, L., Peng, M., Wang, W., Su, Y., Cui, S., & Kim, S. (2021). Secure and efficient data storage and sharing scheme based on double blockchain. Computers, Materials & Continua, 66(1), 499-515. Doi: 10.32604/cmc.2020.012205
• Xi, N., Chen, J., Gama, F., Riar, M., & Hamari, J. (2023). The challenges of entering the metaverse: An experiment on the effect of extended reality on workload. Information Systems Frontiers, 25(2), 659-680. Doi: 10.1007/s10796-022-10244-x
• Tao, H., Bhuiyan, M. Z. A., Abdalla, A. N., Hassan, M. M., Zain, J. M., & Hayajneh, T. (2018). Secured data collection with hardware-based ciphers for IoT-based healthcare. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 6(1), 410-420. Doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2018.2854714
• Shiau, W. L., & Huang, L. C. (2023). Scale development for analyzing the fit of real and virtual world integration: an example of Pokémon Go. Information Technology & People, 36(2), 500-531. Doi: 10.1108/ITP-11-2020-0793
• Islam, A., & Shin, S. Y. (2019). BUAV: A blockchain based secure UAV-assisted data acquisition scheme in Internet of Things. Journal of Communications and Networks, 21(5), 491-502. Doi: 10.1109/JCN.2019.000050
• Deepa, N., Pham, Q. V., Nguyen, D. C., Bhattacharya, S., Prabadevi, B., Gadekallu, T. R., ... & Pathirana, P. N. (2022). A survey on blockchain for big data: Approaches, opportunities, and future directions. Future Generation Computer Systems, 131, 209-226. Doi: 10.1016/j.future.2022.01.017
• Bouraga, S. (2021). A taxonomy of blockchain consensus protocols: A survey and classification framework. Expert Systems with Applications, 168, 114384. Doi: 10.1016/j.eswa.2020.114384
• Bahareh Lashkari and Petr Musilek. A comprehensive review of Lashkari, B., & Musilek, P. (2021). A comprehensive review of blockchain consensus mechanisms. IEEE access, 9, 43620-43652. Doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3065880
• Nakamoto, S. (2008). Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Satoshi Nakamoto.
• King, S., & Nadal, S. (2012). Ppcoin: Peer-to-peer crypto-currency with proof-of-stake. self-published paper, August, 19(1).
• Patel, V. (2019). A framework for secure and decentralized sharing of medical imaging data via blockchain consensus. Health informatics journal, 25(4), 1398-1411. Doi: 10.1177/14604582187696
• Scargill, T., Chen, Y., Eom, S., Dunn, J., & Gorlatova, M. (2022, March). Environmental, user, and social context-aware augmented reality for supporting personal development and change. In 2022 IEEE conference on virtual reality and 3D user interfaces abstracts and workshops (VRW) (pp. 155-162). IEEE. Doi: 10.1109/VRW55335.2022.00042
• Xie, J., Yu, F. R., Huang, T., Xie, R., Liu, J., & Liu, Y. (2019). A survey on the scalability of blockchain systems. IEEE network, 33(5), 166-173. Doi: 10.1109/MNET.001.1800290
• Facebook (2021),. Facebook ’ s metaverse could revolutionize healthcare, 2021. https://healthmanagement.org/c/cardio/News/facebooks-metaverse-could-revolutionise-healthcare
• Zhuang, C., Gong, J., & Liu, J. (2021). Digital twin-based assembly data management and process traceability for complex products. Journal of manufacturing systems, 58, 118-131. Doi: 10.1016/j.jmsy.2020.05.011
• Lee, D., Lee, S. H., Masoud, N., Krishnan, M. S., & Li, V. C. (2021). Integrated digital twin and blockchain framework to support accountable information sharing in construction projects. Automation in construction, 127, 103688. Doi: 10.1016/j.autcon.2021.103688
• He, W., Xi, M., Gardner, H., Swift, B., & Adcock, M. (2021, March). Spatial anchor based indoor asset tracking. In 2021 IEEE Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR) (pp. 255-259). IEEE. Doi: 10.1109/VR50410.2021.00047
• Braud, T., Fernández, C. B., & Hui, P. (2022, March). Scaling-up ar: University campus as a physical-digital metaverse. In 2022 ieee conference on virtual reality and 3d user interfaces abstracts and workshops (vrw) (pp. 169-175). IEEE. Doi: 10.1109/VRW55335.2022.00044
• Yu, K., Tan, L., Aloqaily, M., Yang, H., & Jararweh, Y. (2021). Blockchain-enhanced data sharing with traceable and direct revocation in IIoT. IEEE transactions on industrial informatics, 17(11), 7669-7678. Doi: 10.1109/TII.2021.3049141
• Kang, J., Yu, R., Huang, X., Wu, M., Maharjan, S., Xie, S., & Zhang, Y. (2018). Blockchain for secure and efficient data sharing in vehicular edge computing and networks. IEEE internet of things journal, 6(3), 4660-4670. Doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2018.2875542
• Sedlmeir, J., Völter, F., & Strüker, J. (2021). The next stage of green electricity labeling: using zero-knowledge proofs for blockchain-based certificates of origin and use. ACM SIGENERGY Energy Informatics Review, 1(1), 20-31. Doi: 10.1145/3508467.3508470
• Yang, X., & Li, W. (2020). A zero-knowledge-proof-based digital identity management scheme in blockchain. Computers & Security, 99, 102050. Doi: 10.1016/j.cose.2020.102050
• Li, S., Zhao, S., Yang, P., Andriotis, P., Xu, L., & Sun, Q. (2019). Distributed consensus algorithm for events detection in cyber-physical systems. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 6(2), 2299-2308. Doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2019.2906157
• Zhao, R., Zhang, Y., Zhu, Y., Lan, R., & Hua, Z. (2023). Metaverse: Security and privacy concerns. Journal of Metaverse, 3(2), 93-99. Doi: 10.57019/jmv.1286526
• Chaudhry, N., & Yousaf, M. M. (2018, December). Consensus algorithms in blockchain: Comparative analysis, challenges and opportunities. In 2018 12th international conference on open source systems and technologies (ICOSST) (pp. 54-63). IEEE. Doi: 10.1109/ICOSST.2018.8632190