Entering the Healthy Era: 5G will Benefit for the Healthcare Industry
By Cui Shuang & Yu Haoyuan, Science and Technology Daily, Nov. 27, 2020
Guang Zhou(Science and Technology Daily)-In a period when the epidemic caused by COVID-19 outbroke unexpectedly, advanced technologies like 5G played a crucial role in supporting remote medical treatment, online diagnosis and treatment, community management and large data management. To discuss how to improve the way of medical treatment by 5G technology, the 5G Industrial Internet Forum, a sub-forum of the World 5G Convention, was successfully held on November 27.
The sub-forum paid specific attention to the vital role of 5G WITMED in pandemic prevention and control and relevant support to the development of public health and healthcare, as well as creative 5G TCM and Western medicine integration among others.
According to Mao Qunan, since the 19th National Congress of the CPC, China has actively promoted the implementation of the “Healthy China” program, in particular the in-depth integrated development of medical and health care and informatization, to meet the growing medical and health needs of its citizens. Thus, medical services are experiencing the transition from informatization to intellectualization.
Wu Hequan(L), George Gao Fu(M) and Liu Liang(R) are discussing 5G medical topics during the forum (Photo: World 5G Convention Organizing Committee)
George Gao Fu further highlighted that the health code and other technology helped realize the goal of “early detection, early diagnosis, early isolation, early treatment, and strict tracking and isolation of close contacts” during the COVID-19 epidemic. In the future, the impact of 5G technology on the medical system and mechanism will be reflected in the work of doctors and public health staff, and the in-depth participation in personal health services and health management after the technology enters the family.
“TCM is a complex scientific system that requires comprehensive scientific analysis. As a high-performance analytical technology, 5G can help complete the tracing and the resource survey of traditional Chinese medicine,” said Liu Liang, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering and President of Macau University of Science and Technology
Moreover, as expressed by Song Erwei, the Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dean of Zhongshan School of Medicine, on the one hand, the characteristics of 5G, such as high speed and short delay, are beneficial to hospitals. For instance, a network with low-latency is a necessary guarantee for remote surgery. On the other hand, 5G increases the efficiency of medical work. Specifically, the synchronous communication between the hospital area and the medical consortium is improved, allowing the medical consortium to be used as the hospital access point.
Also, “barriers” in the healthcare and information technology industries were discussed.
Wu Hequan, the Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that both 5G and public health were related to people. The application of 5G is just in the early stage, where many functions have not been fully utilized. The reason lies not only in the lack of technology and market maturity but also in the insufficient understanding of public health by experts in information technology.
In addition, Fan Yubo, the Dean of School of Engineering Medicine BUAA, indicated that 5G would bring some new service models and service scenarios. To better empower medical care, 5G is in urgent need of overlapping medical workers and research and innovation.
At the end of the sub-forum, Mao proposed three suggestions: 1) actively promoting the pilot application of 5G technology in the medical field, creating new 5G smart medical and health products and new forms of business that can be copied and promoted, 2) improving the standard system of 5G application in the medical and health field, 3) optimizing the safety system for corresponding 5G applications.
Mao also made an conclusion: the deep integration of 5G and the health care industry has laid a foundation for the comprehensive implementation of “Healthy China” and reinforcement Internet with medical health services. Apart from greatly promoting the flow, collection and storage of healthcare-related big data, it also boosts data model training and algorithm evolution of the medical field and creates a wild space for medical informatization.