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Jakarta Post

How 5G will transform health care

5G connectivity can bring the hospital to your doorstep. This is not only convenient for the parties involved, but it could also effectively speed up the procedure. 

Arslan Hassan (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, October 16, 2019

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How 5G will transform health care 5G connectivity can bring the hospital to your doorstep. (Shutterstock/metamorworks)

T

he fifth generation (5G) refers to the super-fast internet and promises to provide speeds that are at least 10 to 20 times greater than the normal speed of the internet.

With faster downloads and uploads along with wider coverage, 5G is bound to bring about changes in various sectors. If used intelligently, 5G can transform our current healthcare scenario.

With the sophisticated gadgets, patients no longer want to visit the clinic for their check-ups. Instead, they want to connect with doctors on their gadgets and get virtual treatment for minor ailments. This is where 5G plays its role. Technology can ensure that there is an uninterrupted linkage between patients and doctors.

Other than speed, 5G also provides improvements to the connection density along with minimizing delays. It can be especially beneficial for those who are in far off, remote areas and are in dire need of healthcare facilities.

Let’s look at the impact of 5G on the future of health care.

Effective healthcare tools

Increasing the speed and the bandwidth of the internet opens a whole new range of possibilities. This paves the path for effective healthcare tools that allow smarter communication. It also reduces the restrictions placed on healthcare providers.

Since the data is smart along with the smart functionality of devices, it becomes easier to implement a more personalized form of healthcare. Collecting smart data, rather than data in individual points of time can help identify issues among patients, which is not possible in real-time. The results achieved through this method are more reliable and credible.

5G connectivity can bring the hospital to your doorstep. This is not only convenient for the parties involved, but it could also effectively speed up the procedure. Moreover, it could provide healthcare providers with a whole new set of sophisticated tools. These tools can effectively treat patients faster than treatments provided in emergency rooms. Applications can alert the emergency department of the hospital regarding the condition of the patient. This will prepare the team of doctors in advance before the patient reaches the hospital.

This is just one example of 5G technology. Moreover, it is also a great chance for companies providing mobile app development services to create applications that could bring about noticeable improvements in the healthcare industry. With applications like those explained above, doctors can save more lives every day.

Health care at home

Health care at home was a distant possibility for many before the advent of 5G healthcare. There is a major gap between the kind of care provided at home as compared to that provided in hospitals. With an increase in the number of patients who want to be treated at home 5G could help bridge the gap. Patients no longer want to wait to be treated and have the additional costs of being accommodated at a hospital.

5G will make home health care a reliable option. Through video chats over a reliable internet connection, patients can explain their concerns to a doctor. Other than that, 5G can also enable wearables along with remote devices that make it a possibility for the patient to feel that they are conversing with a doctor in real time. Due to the low latency provided over 5G networks, nurses can monitor the patients in real-time with minimum delay. Moreover, all emergencies can be addressed without any delay. Doctors can provide patients with links through which they can be monitored effectively.

Home health care can open a multitude of opportunities to provide health care for the elderly. They can be in the comfort of their homes unless they are in a critical condition. This idea unleashes the possibility of providing therapeutic services to people with psychological disorders and ailments. The idea of remote therapy and rehabilitative sessions could help combat depression for those who are too embarrassed to see a psychiatrist.

Improving outcomes and accessibility

Among all the benefits that 5G has for us, a major one is an improvement in outcomes and accessibility for healthcare providers. Doctors and nurses will be in a better position to get data regarding follow-up visits. This tends to be a problem with patients who are discharged. Having access to data will play a positive role in reducing the rate at which the patients are readmitted to the hospital. For example, if a patient is under physiotherapy, the healthcare provider can ask the patient to do those exercises that are helping him improve. This could make health care more personalized and help improve the rate of recovery for the patient.

Another aspect of 5G technology for health care is the facilities provided to people living in rural areas. They can benefit from this technology more than anyone. It will save them the hassle of traveling to more developed areas for the smallest health issues that they suffer. Rural hospitals can be well-equipped with virtual technology that can improve the standards of health care.

Virtual technology can help reach a greater number of patients even in more developed areas. For example, sensors can be installed near the patient and alert the healthcare provider. If the patient requires a consultation, he can directly communicate with the doctor through video conferencing.

Conclusion

The advent of 5G can help empower the healthcare industry in the greatest way possible. The future of health care can constitute smarter healthcare facilities personalized for every patient. Although the implementation of 5G could be costly at first, eventually it will help to cut costs. It could also be effective in providing better services than the traditional methods of health care.

The healthcare industry has been yearning for more personalized health care. At the end of the day, what is most important is making sure that the patient is comfortable. 5G could help provide that along with cutting costs. This could revolutionize the healthcare industry like never before. (kes)

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Arslan is an electrical engineer with a passion for writing, designing and anything tech-related. His educational background in the technical field has given him the edge to write on many topics. He occasionally writes blog articles for Dynamologic Solutions, a mobile app development company

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