5G & Edge Technologies in Hospitals – Telesurgeries and Telementoring

Healthcare organizations worldwide use a wide variety of digital devices and healthcare information technologies to improve the outcomes and access to their day-to-day care management and delivery of healthcare services. Surgeries carried out in digitally enabled operating rooms have witnessed an improvement in quality and outcomes owing to digital transformation within the entire healthcare provider ecosystem. These innovations range from patient data availability through electronic health records (EHRs) to connected devices, point-of-care imaging, modalities, and sensors that constantly monitor patient’s vital signs prior to, post, and during surgical procedures. Technological innovations and their relevant applications in daily medical practice initiated advancements in the broad domain of healthcare delivery.

Challenges that hinder the advancement of surgeries to the next level:

Today, even though healthcare providers, medical device companies, and their vendors offering solutions have been successful in interconnecting systems, devices, modalities, and sensors within the site of care, the physical distance between the patient and the surgeon remains unchanged. This proximity barrier presents a wide spectrum of issues, especially in the current scenario of a global pandemic where social distancing has become the new norm and travel bans are in place. Other issues include the underutilization of skilled and trained specialist surgeons for patients in need

Most reputed hospitals globally have experienced surgeons, but typically they do not have every surgical specialty staff onboarded in their organization. Quite often, these hospitals consult with specialist physicians and surgeons from different locations/organizations, to support them in complicated procedures. These collaborations are usually organized by the surgical team through video and audio channels during the surgery. The present collaborations using conventional channels tend to be less effective owing to the inefficiencies in communication, lower data rate, and incomplete data sharing. The involvement of specialists seems to be limited since they are handicapped without a holistic view of the patient data, whether it be from a surgical camera or real-time patient analysis.

How 5G with edge technologies transform the surgery ecosystem to enable remotely assisted surgeries and telementoring:

The accelerated growth of technology in medical science with artificial intelligence (AI), robotic assistance, edge computing, and Fifth Generation (5G) wireless networks are all set to play a vital role in catapulting surgeries and medical procedures to the next level by enabling not only remote assistance and telementoring during care delivery and critical surgeries but also full-fledged robotic remote surgeries performed by specialist surgeons located at a remote location. Owing to its interactive nature along with virtual annotators, remote surgeries and telementoring also facilitate the training of new surgeons, where they can participate and collaborate from a distant location.

To effectively implement modern remote surgical techniques in routine medical care delivery, a considerable amount of technology investments are vital to meet a set of parameters essential for safe surgeries. These include interconnected systems and medical devices in the operating rooms and remote sites which are cloud-enabled and integrated with edge computing capabilities. The entire ecosystem itself needs to be stitched together through a secured communication channel that has enhanced availability, high reliability, wider bandwidth and data rate, improved mobility, very low latency, and multi-connectivity.

5G wireless networks integrated with edge technologies are a perfect candidate for the above-mentioned use case as it surpasses all the required parameters. For remotely assisted surgeries where precision and stability are crucial, 5G wireless networks offer a reliable option with its high-volume data streaming capabilities from multiple sources such as patient data, feed from point-of-care imaging devices during the surgery, sensor data, robot instructions, patient’s sensual experience, etc. to and back from the remote location where the experts are available. In technical terms, 5G networks are characterized by tremendously high data rates in a range of 0.1 to 20 Gbps, ultra-low latency of around 1-2 ms, and simultaneous device connectivity (Multiple Input Multiple Output, MIMO). Latency represents the delay between data availability between sender and receiver – the lower the latency, the higher the chances of a ‘real-time’ experience.

 Conclusion

In a nutshell, by combining the power of 5G wireless networks, connected medical devices and other leading-edge edge-technologies, healthcare organizations and their digital partners can transform numerous aspects of patient care and medical procedures. These innovations can unleash a new healthcare ecosystem that is closely-knit, virtually interconnected, and extremely efficient at utilizing the available resources. Nevertheless, these innovations spearheaded by 5G wireless networks and edge technologies are forecasted to enable telesurgery and telementoring in day-to-day medical care. Furthermore, combining remote surgeries with other innovative technologies such as AI/ML, AR, VR, haptic feedback for sensations, etc., with a 5G network as the medium to stitch them all together, will take these surgeries to a whole new spectrum of transformation. Other factors such as the cost of technology and infrastructure investments, compliance and regulatory framework at a national and an international level, and the ever-increasing threat of cyberattacks must be thoroughly evaluated if 5G is indeed the means to next-generation surgeries.