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Improving patient care through the development of a 5G-powered smart hospital

Nature Medicine volume 27, pages 936–937 (2021)Cite this article

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To address this issue, GD2H recently announced the building of a comprehensive smart hospital in conjunction with Huawei, using 5G technology that features low latency, high capacity, increased bandwidth and a wireless nature3. The 5G hospital has attracted worldwide attention because of the potential for fundamentally changing how hospitals operate. By using 5G in combination with cloud storage and AI, the comprehensive 5G smart hospital will cover areas of healthcare, teaching and training, research, and management, with 5G technology applied both within and outside the hospital, including ambulance, outpatient and inpatient services, and the operating room. The 5G smart hospital has several potential benefits, as outlined below.

In 2019, GD2H started to guide complex surgery conducted in remote hospitals, connected live via 5G, that allowed the operating room to be turned into a classroom4. Since then, GD2H has continued to explore ways that 5G could overcome the problem of real-time data sharing due to distance and volume of data. GD2H has now equipped its ambulances with a portable computerized tomography scanner, an electrocardiogram and an echocardiogram machine, as well as first-aid supplies. Once a patient enters the ambulance, the use of 5G allows real-time data on rapid assessment, with examinations and diagnoses, monitoring, and initial treatments transmitted to the hospital system simultaneously. If necessary, a multidisciplinary team can arrive within minutes for consultation and decision-making, while the emergency room is made ready to receive the patient. The 5G-powered ambulance as a mini-hospital will shorten the time from disease onset to treatment received, which should improve the survival of patients and achieve better outcomes.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Z. Ye, Y. Zhou, M. Leng and J. Zhu for help in supporting necessary data and materials for this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Methodology, Guangdong Second Provincial General Hospital, Guangzhou, China

    Guowei Li, Hongying Qu & Ziyi Li

  2. Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    Guowei Li

  3. Information Department, Guangdong Second Provincial General Hospital, Guangzhou, China

    Wanmin Lian

  4. Internet Hospital, Guangdong Second Provincial General Hospital, Guangzhou, China

    Qiru Zhou

  5. Institute for Healthcare Artificial Intelligence Application, Guangdong Second Provincial General Hospital, Guangzhou, China

    Junzhang Tian

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  1. Guowei Li
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Correspondence to Junzhang Tian.

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Li, G., Lian, W., Qu, H. et al. Improving patient care through the development of a 5G-powered smart hospital. Nat Med 27, 936–937 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01376-9

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