5G and Network Slicing: Enablers for Smart Healthcare

At present, the global healthcare industry is facing major challenges in terms of data management, low operating margins, unbalanced distribution of medical resources, and lack of IT infrastructure. Healthcare organizations have realized that legacy infrastructure is the main obstacle for growth in the world of connected devices, and this is initiating an era of softwarization in healthcare. Most healthcare organizations, but not all, are convinced that infrastructure needs to be upgraded for cost-effectiveness and enhanced healthcare experiences, and have started adopting advanced techniques to address these challenges. 5G technology can assist healthcare service providers to improve these processes further, and telcos may have a role to play in this value chain.

But the question remains: will telcos aim to revolutionize healthcare practices, and if yes, which technologies will drive this?

There are indications that healthcare is likely to be one of the first adopters of 5G technology for use cases that go beyond connectivity. Although there are no direct 5G developments in this market, the increasing use of Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices and readiness of healthcare organizations to adopt new technologies indicates the 5G-readiness of this sector. This vertical is one of the earliest adopters of IoT technology with millions of sensing devices already deployed, in addition to assisting service providers in operations management. The concept of “Smart Healthcare” successfully activates the socio-technological platform by enabling healthcare providers to offer patient-friendly solutions such as remote audio/video, remote surgery (integrating medical robotics and real-time video capabilities), resource database maintenance and sharing, remote health monitoring using wearables/portable devices, active monitoring via health and fitness mobile applications, and so on. The vision behind this suggested concept is to serve patients efficiently and provide them the satisfaction of having healthcare at the tip of their fingers.

If successful, the smart healthcare system is well on its way to disrupt healthcare infrastructure; where 5G and network slicing will act as the pillars for the next generation of healthcare services. It remains to be seen whether telcos will design vertical-specific services for the healthcare vertical to manage:

• The massive amount of data created by IoMT devices (wearables, implantable medical devices, and smart sensing remote/inhouse monitoring devices);
• Increasing demand of machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics capabilities to serve the use cases like medical robots and cognitive computing; and
• Uninterrupted connectivity requirements for high-end applications such as biotelemetry, virtual reality (VR) trainings, ambulance drones, bioinformatics, and real-time data transmission.

Apart from telcos and healthcare organizations, pharmaceutical companies, medical software/application developers, and sensing device manufacturers will also be key components of this 5G-enabled healthcare ecosystem. This industry will be able to utilize the power of network slicing for the integration of expertise from ecosystem elements, IT infrastructure management, and communication (between devices, service providers, network operators, and end-users/patients) management.

Yet, it is too early to analyze which company will initiate this transformation, but there are few indicators that shows the process initiation. For example, United Healthcare Group and Qualcomm collaborated on the initiative to utilize Qualcomm’s medical-grade connectivity platform for designing wearables and connected devices. Additionally, VMWare and Cardinal Health collaborated for the virtualization of Cardinal Health’s globally distributed IT infrastructure (using NFV and SDN technologies) with an aim to make it 5G-ready.

ABI Research believes that network slicing will act as an enabler for high-tech healthcare by managing vital statistics from millions of connected devices, providing privacy and security to medical data, and exchanging real-time data within the ecosystem to streamline treatment procedures. In fact, the healthcare vertical could utilize network slicing to execute the concept of home-based hospitals (to take care of patients after a few days of a hospital stay).  Network slices will provide E2E support for conducting specific tasks such as active monitoring, condition analysis, and vital data transmission. When needed, the system can generate emergency alerts for taking necessary action.

Continuing on a path where medical services will be running on 5G infrastructure, one can expect drastic technological progression in terms of computing and data storage capabilities, softwarization, and seamless connectivity. 5G and network slicing are expected to bring the paradigm shift in this vertical that can be observed in the form of:

• Centralized and globally accessible medical data sets for patients and service providers;
• Inexpensive home-care/self-monitoring over expensive frequent visits to medical specialists;
• Simplified and connected medical sensing devices over critical tests and procedures for disease diagnosis; and
• Robots and automated information kiosks over waiting for manual assistance.

Nevertheless, the incorporation of 5G and network slicing in healthcare use cases will improve living standards for people and will make the world healthier. ABI Research expects that this technological shift in the healthcare domain will initiate from the North American region, considering the current investments statistics in smart health initiatives.

According to the report published in May 2016 by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), 34 hospitals in the APAC region received top ratings (Stage 7 and 6) in the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model (a tool that scores a healthcare facility’s levels of IT system adoption) survey. Similarly, the study conducted by WHO suggested that Southeast Asian countries have a very high-level of telemedicine adoption rate.

In a recent B2B survey, ABI Research polled decision makers and influencers on their opinions about transformative technology adoption. The result of this survey stated that the healthcare vertical has a relatively high level of familiarity with 5G technology, and 42% of respondents in this sector have plans for 5G deployments. Clearly, there is a huge scope of investment for the players in the ecosystem across the globe, as smart healthcare movement will grow not only in the mature markets, but also in emerging markets where the operators are planning to make use of 5G to serve healthcare vertical.