In a report titled “The 5G Business Potential,” networking and Telecommunications Company Ericsson has found wearable devices and artificial intelligence will improve resource efficiency and meet consumer demands for greater convenience and freedom of choice in the healthcare sector.
The report analyzed the 5G business opportunity that comes from industrial digitalization in eight key global industries. According to the report, there’s a US $76 billion revenue opportunity in 2026 for operators addressing healthcare transformation with 5G.
Telecomm Operators and 5G
Telecomm operators will have several areas to work on, such as hospital applications – virtual reality used in medical training, telemetry and online booking systems – and real-time medical data management.
The area that has the most potential for operators addressing this industry with 5G, according to the report, is patient applications used outside of traditional hospital environments, such as precision medicine, online consultations and applications to monitor health and administer medication remotely to better manage chronic ailments.
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5G in Remote Monitoring
Forty-two percent of decision makers in the industry prefer 5G-enabled devices because they consume less power, according to the report.
Consumer-grade wearables currently used in healthcare aren’t considered accurate enough and not reliable for diagnosis. At the same time, patient’s smartphones cannot be relied upon for diagnosis due to liability reasons. 5G connectivity to wearables and other devices will enable patients to carry a medical-grade 5G router can then be connected to different wearables using Bluetooth, the report said.
5G Performing Remote Procedures
Robotic surgery being conducted in operation theaters today aren’t remote, it requires a surgeon standing next to the robot. According to the report, close to 48% of consumers would accept remote robotic surgery, but 61% believe these procedures are risky as they rely on the internet. 5G networks are crucial to perform remote services yet the demands from the evolving healthcare sector on technology are high.
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Emerging technologies are important to healthcare transformation
Critical healthcare services call for reliable connections. Improved ultra-reliable communications will be needed for instant communication regarding patients’ conditions – via HD images and access to medical records – and deliver tactile information during remote surgical procedures.
The report identified 3 emerging technologies as crucial to healthcare transformation:
- 5G New Radio interface and access extending beyond those of previous generations of mobile communication. The system will possess massive capacity, exceptionally low latency, ultra-high reliability and availability, and very low energy consumption.
- Federated Network Slicing enabling roaming of network slices in other networks to deliver global reach.
- Employing RAN virtualization and Distributed Cloud to ensure very low end-to-end latency. AI and real-time machine learning analytics will become crucial elements of making the networks self-optimizing to secure the fulfillment of service-level agreements.
