The commercial potential of "5G+medical care" is prominent, and a three-pronged approach is needed to achieve maturity

Nowadays, with the country's high attention, enterprises' continuous efforts and the media's extensive publicity, my country's 5G development is gradually entering the fast lane. At the online summit on the first anniversary of 5G commercial use not long ago, we saw a gratifying answer sheet handed in by domestic 5G. Among them, not only the construction of base stations and network deployment are becoming more and more perfect, but also the terminal equipment and commercial packages are being upgraded at an accelerated pace.

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In this report, we see that the total number of 5G base stations in China has reached about 200,000, with an average of more than 10,000 new ones built each week, and they are constantly being rolled out to cities, counties, towns, etc.; at the same time, 5G mobile phone shipments have reached more than 30 million units, and the number of 5G package users has reached more than 12 million. The prices of mobile phones and packages are approaching the thousand yuan and less than 100 yuan level, respectively.

In this context, it can be said that my country's 5G has made good progress in the network and terminal sides, and the application side will undoubtedly become a new focus of layout. Based on this, in this year's government work report, the expansion of 5G applications was also mentioned, and in the "Notice on Promoting the Development of 5G", the state also repeatedly emphasized 5G-related applications.

So how will 5G applications develop in the future? According to relevant Huawei officials, 5G applications in my country have already penetrated into 19 industries, and the strong influence and future potential it has brought are amazing. Among so many application scenarios, which one is the best choice for 5G implementation? What kind of sparks will it collide with 5G? This inevitably makes us hesitate.

5G+ medical transformation value highlights

But in fact, when it comes to 5G applications, there are only two aspects: consumption and industry. Compared with consumer-level applications, industry-level applications are undoubtedly where 5G can really show its power. For example, "5G+manufacturing" can improve production efficiency, increase speed and reduce costs; "5G+education" can accelerate the implementation of smart education; in addition, "5G+medical care" can effectively promote the transformation and upgrading of the traditional medical industry.

Among them, the combination of 5G and the medical field has attracted the most attention. This is not only because the impact of the epidemic this year has made us pay more attention to the medical field, but more importantly, 5G has demonstrated its great value in solving medical human and equipment resources, saving medical operating costs, promoting the sharing and sinking of medical resources, and improving medical efficiency.

As we all know, there are many problems with the current medical care in my country. On the one hand, medical manpower and equipment resources are limited and unevenly distributed across regions. Many people are faced with problems such as "difficulty in seeing a doctor, high medical costs, and slow medical treatment"; on the other hand, the current medical technology level, efficiency, and service are not high, and hospitals are under great pressure in operating costs. The development of the industry has become increasingly unable to meet people's needs.

In this context, smart healthcare has become a key to breaking through the industry, and 5G is a catalyst for the realization of smart healthcare. Through the construction of high-speed, low-latency, and large-capacity 5G networks, remote consultation, remote surgery, remote monitoring, intelligent guidance, emergency rescue, AI-assisted diagnosis, smart hospital management, VR visits, etc. will become a reality, with a very significant effect.

Simply put, with the help of 5G, traditional medical care can make full use of limited medical manpower and equipment resources, give full play to the advantages of medical technology, and solve the problems of insufficient medical level and efficiency; at the same time, it can also accelerate the sharing and sinking of medical resources through the informatization, mobility and remoteness of medical services, and solve the problem of patients' difficulty in seeing a doctor caused by the imbalance of medical care in various places.

A few points to note for mature development

In short, the impact and value of 5G in medical applications are immeasurable, and the future development potential and space are very large. However, it is not easy for "5G+medical" to mature, because it is affected by construction costs, charging models, etc. Not only is the feasibility of promotion questionable, but also due to the influence of technical verification and safety responsibilities, its large-scale implementation is also difficult.

At present, although with the deepening of the concept of "5G+Medical", the three major operators are making intensive plans and major hospitals are also actively carrying out related deployments, but because the construction of 5G base stations and private networks is difficult and the cost is not low, the specific charges and models in the application are difficult for consumers to accept, which leads to obstacles in the promotion and popularization of 5G applications.

At the same time, with the increase in 5G base stations and the improvement of network coverage, the application of 5G technology also has huge concerns about privacy and security. Relevant experts have said that 5G base stations are more numerous and denser than 4G base stations, which means that people's location information and other privacy are more easily determined and violated. Based on this, the data security risks exposed in 5G medical applications also hinder their implementation.

In addition, due to the unclear division of relevant security responsibilities, there are a lot of shoddy, counterfeit and concept speculation in the application, which also poses challenges to the maturity of "5G+medical care". Although my country has previously issued the "Hospital Network Construction Standards Based on 5G Technology", in the future, strengthening the construction of industry and technology application standards and strengthening application supervision cannot be ignored.

To sum up, the mature development of 5G in medical applications still requires the following three points: first, accelerate the construction of 5G base stations, improve 5G dedicated network coverage, and reduce the cost and price of 5G applications; second, accelerate 5G technology research and improve the security and reliability of 5G technology applications; third, strengthen industry standards and supervision to create a healthy and orderly environment for industry applications.