5G and The Future of Digital Health

By Dr Marcus Tan - HealthEngine CEO & Co-Founder 

If indeed life imitates art then the famous science fiction franchise Star Trek has already foreseen the future of healthcare.  It is a future 350 years from now where holographic doctors enabled by powerful artificial intelligence and mobile transmitters can be summoned at will and can access humanity’s full medical knowledge and skill base in a matter of microseconds to deliver efficient and infallible healthcare. 

Whether we should allow, much less strive, for technology to supplant the need for a human healthcare provider altogether is a controversial topic outside the scope of this post. However we have already started to see initiatives by some healthcare innovators involving virtual or augmented reality and holographic 3D transmissions of the patient, the provider, or both to make the consultation appear as close to emulating a face to face experience as possible.

Contrast these innovations to our current reality of a healthcare sector where paper records, waiting rooms and fax machines remain pervasive despite superior technological solutions being available for decades and the best intentions of the system seeking change.

Extraordinary things happen during extraordinary times and the sheer necessity arising from having to provide a service to patients in isolation, for the safety of the clinician and the patients themselves, combined with the introduction of a more universal medicare rebate has seen the adoption of telehealth in a matter of a few short weeks at a scale that most would have said would have otherwise taken a decade or longer to achieve.

This uptake in telehealth has largely been conducted via voice on the telephone only.  Video consultations have been hampered technologically by complaints of poor resolution, latency and inconsistent experiences based on internet connectivity on the patient and provider ends. HealthEngine looks into more learnings around the early telehealth experience with this new Uptake of Telehealth report.

With reduced latency and increases in upload and download speeds, 5G promises to solve some of the issues arising from the increased usage of telehealth.  Should we believe in the distant future of virtual/holographic care, where there will be a need to transmit larger and larger amounts of data, then improvements in mobile network speed and capacity will be critical.

5G is expected to benefit and advance the healthcare industry as well as give consumers the opportunity to be more informed and involved with their ongoing health. The Medical Futurist  

highlights the potential for rehab through VR and AR, smart bandages that track healing, devices to help parents connect with babies in incubators and remotely conducted surgeries.

In our day to day lives, the continued uptake of health wearables with connected systems and artificial intelligence,  gives us the power to continuously monitor our health and habits from sleep, steps, blood tests, heart rate and other biometric data. According to a recent Gallup poll, one in five American consumers own a wearable device like an Apple Watch or Fitbit. This interest in the quantified self movement and openness to sensors and wearables to gain self-knowledge through self-tracking will expand as innovators continue to bring new products to the market and scale them, while 5G ensures the ability to stay connected with the cloud at all times and upload and download a lot more information.

This rise and advancement of wearables combined with much needed 5G technology, has been predicted to decrease hospital costs in the year ahead as noted in the Medical Futurist  as connected devices transmit real-time data to doctors about their patients’ health.

In combination with greater cloud adoption and advances in artificial intelligence, whatever future we end up with, 5G represents another important step towards a more capable healthcare sector and that can only be a good thing for patient wellbeing which we all can agree is ultimately the most important outcome of all healthcare systems.

Dr Marcus Tan is CEO, Co-Founder & Medical Director of HealthEngine. Marcus is an experienced GP, healthcare executive and company director with over 20 years of clinical and commercial experience. His diverse career spans the health, technology, investment and philanthropic sectors. He serves on various health and community bodies, including as a board member of the Australian Medical Association (WA).

Optus 5G rolling out in selected areas. Not available in NT or TAS. Check if 5G is available in your area here .