United Arab Emirates to launch first Metaverse hospital

On Wednesday, an official announced that the United Arab Emirates‘ first hospital in the Metaverse would be opened by the Thumbay Group, to provide healthcare services. 

The initiative is currently in the works and is expected to be ready to open  working by October this year. 

The virtual healthcare services enable patients to visit the hospital and interact with the doctors via their avatars. 

Founder and president of Thumbay Group, Dr. Thumbay Moideen said, ‘We are already working on it and expect it to launch before October this year. This will be a complete virtual hospital where people will come with an avatar and consult with the doctor. To cater to medical tourism, we will allow patients to see what the hospital looks like in the metaverse if they travel and come to Thumbay healthcare facility.’

The Thumbay hospital currently offers augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) -backed healthcare services to ‘long-term care patients who are bedridden, paralyzed or have been hospitalized for at least six months,’ according to a report by Investing.com. Such technologies include the use of cameras to recognize patients’ car license plate numbers and faces before they check in to streamline operations. UAE’s Metaverse hospital aims to expand the firm’s abilities to reach and serve more patients such as the permanently disabled.

So far, the UAE healthcare organization has already hired a company to train doctors who will work at the Metaverse hospital on how to serve their patients

In January, the world’s first customer service center powered by Metaverse technologies was launched in Dubai by the UAE Ministry of Health and Community Protection (MOHAP).