Blockchain-empowered healthcare metaverses

• Main Author: Loo, Qing Yan
• Other Authors: Dusit Niyato
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2024
• Subjects: Computer and Information Science; Engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/181112
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Blockchain is a decentralized and secure method for recording transactions and has gained prominence across industries due to its potential for ensuring data integrity, transparency, and security. In healthcare, blockchain can revolutionize how sensitive patient data is managed, shared, and utilized, particularly in the emerging realm of healthcare metaverses – virtual environments designed for medical interactions, training, and treatment. The integration of blockchain into these metaverses ensures a secure framework for storing patient information, safeguarding digital identities, and enabling seamless collaboration among healthcare providers globally. Blockchain can also facilitate decentralized clinical trials, real-time health data monitoring, and smart contracts for insurance claims within virtual healthcare spaces, offering a more efficient and reliable system. As healthcare moves towards digital and immersive experiences in the metaverse, blockchain plays a pivotal role in creating a trustworthy, interoperable, and transparent ecosystem that can handle complexities of virtual patient care, telemedicine, and medical education. This synergy between blockchain and healthcare metaverses has the potential to improve patient outcomes, streamline operations, and enhance the overall efficiency of healthcare delivery in a digitally integrated future. Hence, the purpose of this project is to design a user-centric framework for healthcare metaverses and to strengthen privacy protection within these virtual healthcare environments, a cross-chain approach will be employed to improve the security of sensing data.