Smart Health: Intelligent Healthcare Systems in the Metaverse, Artificial Intelligence, and Data Science Era

In recent decades, healthcare organizations around the world have increasingly appreciated the value of information technologies for a variety of applications. Three of the new technological advancements that are impacting smart health are metaverse, artificial intelligence (AI), and data science. The metaverse is the intersection of three major technologies - AI, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR). Metaverse provides new possibilities and potential that are still emerging. The increased work efficiency enabled by artificial intelligence and data science in hospitals not only improves patient care but also cuts costs and workload for healthcare providers. Artificial intelligence, coupled with machine learning, is transforming the healthcare industry. The availability of big data enables data scientists to use the data for descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics. This article reviews multiple case studies and the literature on AI and data science applications in hospital administration. The article also presents unresolved research questions and challenges in the applications of the metaverse, AI, and data science in the smart health context. For researchers, in addition to providing a good synopsis of the development and applications of the metaverse, AI, and data science in the healthcare area, this article identifies possible future research directions and discusses the possibilities of the metaverse, artificial intelligence, and data science in smart health. For practitioners, this article provides both hospital decision-makers and healthcare workers with practical guidelines and a smart health management model.