The “digital” transformation of the medical industry has already begun long ago, but the degree of development has been relatively slow.
On the other hand, with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, big data analysis, cloud computing, 5G technology, etc., the “digital” transformation of the medical industry is expected to be truly “intelligent” or even “intelligent”.
Globally, governments all over the world attach great importance to the development of the smart medical industry, and actively formulate and publish smart medical related policies.
After these policies are implemented, the global smart medical market is in a stage of steady development. It is foreseeable that after the application of 5G technology, this market will develop faster.
Statistics show that the global medical market sales driven by 5G technology are expected to exceed US$1.1 trillion (approximately RMB 7.57 trillion) by 2035, accounting for about 9% of the global 5G economy at that time.
In my country, where the 5G industry is in a critical period of comprehensive acceleration, 5G smart medical related policies have been deployed and released one after another.
For example, the “Healthy China Action (2019-2030)” issued by the National Health Commission on July 15, 2019 comprehensively put forward the development goals of personal health management. The 5G WeChat public platform (ID: angmobile) learned that the National Health Commission is working closely with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to promote the application of 5G in the medical and health field.
For another example, the 2019 government work report clearly stated that the telemedicine network should be upgraded and upgraded, and the expansion and upgrading of mobile networks should be promoted, so that users can truly feel that the network speed is faster and more stable.
At present, the development of “telemedicine” has great practical significance. my country’s population accounts for 22% of the world’s population, but medical and health resources account for only 2% of the world’s total, resulting in an insufficient supply of medical services. Among them, nearly 80% of my country’s medical resources are concentrated in urban areas. The geographical distribution of medical resources is extremely uneven. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and economically developed coastal cities occupy rich medical resources, while medical resources in western and remote areas are relatively weak. Some areas are even seriously inadequate.
It is worth mentioning that what the 2019 government work report clearly defines is to “promote the expansion and upgrade of mobile networks, and transform and upgrade telemedicine networks.” This has laid a good policy foundation for applying 5G systems to “telemedicine”.
From a theoretical point of view, in terms of technical capabilities, 5G does have the possibility of carrying “telemedicine”:
① 5G eMBB (Enhanced Mobile Broadband) can provide high-speed and high-bandwidth business capabilities of up to 10 Gbps, and can support the transmission of HD/UHD video, and HD/UHD video is a key tool for realizing telemedicine;
② In addition, the industry generally believes that the 5G system based on 3GPP Rel-15 can meet the network-side end-to-end delay ≥ 10 milliseconds. This value fully meets the delay requirements of telemedicine applications.
Therefore, in terms of technical theory alone, the first stage of 5G commercial network can be used for remote control, realizing the high-definition/ultra-high-definition video backhaul of telemedicine. “Telemedicine” will surely become one of the main application scenarios of early 5G eMBB commercialization. .
In fact, the above-mentioned technical theory has also been realized, and has played a very good application demonstration effect.
For example, in June, Hubei Province’s first medical consortium 5G remote collaborative operation was successfully completed. With the help of China Mobile Hubei Company and Datang Mobile, experts from Shiyan Taihe Hospital in Hubei Province provided guidance through remote real-time direct viewing. Doctors 200 kilometers away successfully completed the laparoscopic cholecystectomy operation.
For another example, in July, the three parties once again joined forces to successfully remotely guide a 74-year-old, mobility-impaired knee patient in Shenlongjia Forest District, Hubei Province to perform knee surgery through the 5G telemedicine system.
On the same day, Liu Yingzi, director of the Hubei Provincial Health and Health Commission, watched the entire process of 5G remote surgery. She emphasized that the province’s medical system should increase “5G + medical” innovation, use technology to exert the radiation efficiency of high-quality medical resources, and use advanced medical models. Improve the health level of the province.
This means that the application effect of 5G in “telemedicine” has been highly recognized, and the related 5G telemedicine system model has been greatly affirmed.
And “telemedicine” is only one of the applications of 5G in smart medical care. It can be said that 5G technology will be expected to be a “booster” for the construction of the national hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system. 5G medical care is an active practice in the process of establishing a high-quality and efficient medical and health service system-including but not limited to 5G remote consultation, 5G remote health monitoring, 5G remote surgery, 5G remote ultrasound, 5G telemedicine command for emergencies, 5G telemedicine communication and learning, 5G smart campus management, etc.
For the above application scenarios, the domestic mobile communication industry and the medical industry have been closely exploring together. It is reported that in this process, Datang Mobile and various parties have explored an acceptable 5G smart medical business model:
① Mobile communication operators can help medical units deploy 5G private networks, or adopt the method of “renting on behalf of construction”.
② For 5G remote consultation, 5G remote surgery teaching, AR medical simulation and other services, mobile communication operators will cooperate with ICT solution providers and medical information service providers after carrying out corresponding capacity development to assess the overall software and hardware traffic Packed and charged monthly/yearly functional service fee.
③For the application of 5G in the fields of medical testing and nursing and personal health management, mobile communication operators can charge according to the income of the card user (month/year) of the Internet of Things devices. Industry experts believe that for these types of applications, operators can first provide health management products on the medical application platform to group customers such as nursing homes and corporate employees, and collect blood pressure, blood glucose, ECG and other data at any time by wearing micro-small wearable monitoring devices. Geographic location information is uploaded to the medical business platform via the 5G network in real time to obtain remote health guidance from doctors; when a sudden data anomaly is detected, the medical cloud platform can immediately notify the nearest medical institution and emergency unit via the 5G network.
④ The 5G remote surgery business is currently only a small-scale private network trial and demonstration. The country has not established industry standards and evaluation systems. In the future, its business model still needs to be explored.
At present, the domestic exploration of 5G medical applications has achieved a good demonstration effect. I believe that the subsequent inter-departmental coordination, greater technical verification, and the establishment of a unified standard and evaluation system for the deep integration of 5G and medical applications have been established. After waiting, the new generation of information and communication technology such as 5G promotes the “digital” transformation of the medical industry to truly become “intelligent” or even “intelligent.”