The right to health care means that everyone, regardless of where they live or their economic background, should have access to health care wherever they need it. However, for a country like ours with more than 1.4 billion inhabitants, where almost 65% of the total population lives in rural areas, it is an uphill task.
The proliferation of smartphones along with access to fast internet it has made virtual healthcare a reality, which has the potential to act to some extent as a leveler. virtual healthcare, popularly known as telemedicine or telehealth, is cheaper than traditional healthcare facilities, but this is not the only benefit it offers. The most notable benefit of telehealth is access to some of the best doctors hundreds or even thousands of miles away from home.
A subset of virtual healthcare known as remote patient monitoring has also emerged in recent years. This involves offering data-driven information and interventions to patients who are monitored remotely through smart (IoT) devices and sensors. That being said, virtual healthcare is limited to diagnosing conditions and prescribing medications for patients. Technological advances and the proliferation of 5G could further revolutionize healthcare.
health in the 5G Was:
What if a surgeon from Delhi could perform emergency surgery on a person from Jagatsinghpur in Odisha and save a precious life, without even being in the same room? This could perhaps be possible with a robot surgeon acting as the hands and eyes of a skilled expert. The big question is what it really takes to perform these robotic surgeries: a combination of remote-controlled robotic arms, miniature 3D video cameras, and multiple sensors. These sensors help maneuver and capture a variety of vital patient data and transmit it over a low-latency 5G network. High-resolution 3D video of patients helps remote surgeons identify organs and other essential information needed for the operation.
5G becomes imperative for remote surgeries like some of his characteristics such as ultra-reliable, low-latency communications (URLLC) and enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) are must-haves for telesurgery or telesurgery. remote surgeries allow a surgeon to perform an operation on a ‘virtual copy’ of the patient. The life-or-death need for real-time feedback via 3D video and sensory data transmission means that, at no cost, the doctor or surgeon can lose connection or have a delay while performing an operation. Low latency enables split-second decisions that will allow the robot to copy a surgeon’s movements or actions. A large amount of medical data is produced during surgery and must be saved for follow-up or future machine learning (ML) training. Such data is of immense importance for clinicians to learn and follow best practices. Add the data created to provide 3D video display, which would require two high-definition video streams from the surgical system to remote displays with the required resolution, frame rates, and encoding standards of an XR device or a 3D screen. A typical 60 minute operation can produce 67 GB to 334 GB of image data2.
The future
Remote healthcare has the potential to revolutionize healthcare in India by bringing healthcare to even the most marginalized segments of any population. It will also make personalized health services a reality. The intersection of 5G and advanced technology will be the enablers of this revolution. At the same time, 5G can bring complexity in terms of the magnitude of data that will be generated and processed at the edge. Storage planning early in the 5G and IoT application design phase becomes important so that storage does not become a bottleneck in the proliferation of such use cases.
jaganathan cheliahSenior Director – Marketing, India, Middle East and Africa, Western Digital
(DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by ETHealthworld. ETHealthworld.com shall not be liable for any damage caused to any person or organization directly or indirectly.)
