5G Healthcare Use Cases and How to Prepare for Them

With many successful use cases of 5G in healthcare popping up, it may be time to consider how your facility can prepare. Read up on some interesting use cases as well as tips on how to gear up for the next generation of internet.

5G healthcare has started to pick up quite a bit of traction in the past couple of years with actual use cases being brought to the spotlight. In fact, the Veterans Affairs hospital in Palo Alto, California is set to become one of the first ever 5G enabled healthcare facilities in the world as parts of the hospital have already begun operation.

With instances such as this and many more becoming common, excitement for 5G has started to become a little more concrete and warranted. Patients and physicians alike are excited to finally see the advancements they’ve been promised for years!

But, what exactly are these advancements and use cases? And how can providers make sure they’re ready to deploy new 5G healthcare technologies?

5G Healthcare Use Cases

5G is the 5th generation of mobile internet, primarily setting itself apart from 4G with its much higher frequency signals. These signals deliver exponentially faster speeds, less latency, and less unexpected internet blackouts.

1. Telehealth

5G healthcare delivers less latency and more real-time transferring of information. This is incredibly helpful for physicians and patients who communicate regularly over video chats or calls. 5G’s more reliable internet cuts down on lost connections and internet blackouts that would normally force a patient to make a trek to their care provider.

Fast internet also allows patients and physicians to share health data in real time. Patients with health tracking wearables can quickly send their physicians valuable information as soon as it becomes available, allowing providers to adapt care at a moment’s notice.

2. Clinical Collaboration

Healthcare facilities deal with an almost comically large amount of patient data. Something like an MRI scan that relies on high resolution imaging outputs gigabytes worth of data for a single patient. Sharing those gargantuan files across the internet to other facilities can take a noticeably long time, hindering urgent and rapid response care.

A 5G network means that these large files can be sent from one facility to another in an instant. This allows specialists from different hospitals who normally wouldn’t be able to support each other in a timely manner to provide responsive care to their shared patients.

3. Telesurgery

Pairing 5G speeds and latency with controlled surgical robots results in surgery that can be performed by a doctor from miles away! Of course, the machinery and networks needed to conduct these surgeries must be fine-tuned before they’re used consistently and on patients. That said, test runs of telesurgery have proved rather promising! The process has already been successfully tested and performed on both animals and humans.

How Can Providers Prepare for 5G Healthcare?

With telehealth and clinical collaboration already on the rise without 5G’s influence, we’ve already seen much wider adoption of IoT devices to support data exchange between patients, physicians, and machines.

Preparing for this increase in sensors and connected devices means bolstering cybersecurity and data protection. Afterall, every internet connected device, including wearables given to patients, are another entry point for a cybercriminal looking to get into your facility’s network.

Consider implementing solutions such as single sign on authentication or medical grade tablets and computers outfitted with RFID authentication. The more you can authenticate the identity of those accessing important data, the better.

5G Healthcare Promises All-Encompassing Improvements

Decreased latency and improved connectivity the likes of which are promised by 5G are only one instance of a grander push towards that value-based care.

For more information on how your facility can prepare for 5G healthcare and value-based care as a whole, speak to a professional from the Cybernet team today.