by Sachin Rane, on Nov 23, 2022 9:54:48 PM
Estimated reading time: 5 mins
Key takeaways from the blog- Edge Cloud Computing, Intelligent Automation, and 5G are opening up new avenues in medical care.
- It helps to mitigate the high patient-to-doctor ratio and offers ultra-low latency, high speed, and scalable medical care.
- The formidable synergy help address a number of use cases that were simply unimaginable in the past.
Healthcare Service is one of the most important pillars of society. They must be agile and efficient as they deliver life-saving services to humanity. Going digital helps them meet and exceed the abovementioned goal and expand their capability to collaborate across different platforms. New avenues, such as Edge Cloud Computing, Intelligent Automation, and 5G, essentially provide the basis for innovation and improve resource efficiency towards collaboration across different platforms.
Why are Edge Cloud Computing and 5G essential in Healthcare?
While delivering life-saving services, time is a critical factor. Doctors and medical caregivers are mostly occupied with tackling emergencies and talking with the in-house patients who are admitted. It is important to note that the patient-to-doctor ratio is very high. So also the patient-to-qualified staff ratio is extremely high even in developed countries. At such times, paramedics have to step in and administer timely care in association with a dedicated team of doctors deployed for managing and monitoring such emergency situations. It helps to balance the skewed patient-to-doctor ratio.
Life is important and speed in administering timely care and monitoring patients is essential. Digitally delivered Healthcare Services become extremely important in such scenarios. However, the networks are unpredictable. Edge Cloud Computing that harbors compute and storage near the data source becomes a savior. Dedicated 5G on a private band helps manage the load and deliver medical care in critical situations. Edge Cloud Computing coupled with 5G offered by top telco players open up new frontiers in administering critical medical care that has ultra-low latency, high speed, and scalability.
Edge Cloud Computing, 5G, and Intelligent Automation – A formidable synergy
Medical care underpins critical data. Yet medical care is not just data. Those are vital parameters of each and every patient, totaling thousands and millions, that are tracked and collected over a period of time. Physical records get misplaced due to human error. However, the records are very critical and the doctors need to access them time and again at a very high speed. The data input devices and also the technicians and staff can be different at different points of time; however, the data needs to get updated to the central system in real-time. Intelligent Automation leads the way in real-time data synchronization between systems without swivel chair data entry operations. It enables Healthcare Service Providers to ingest and synchronize both structured and unstructured data from documents and systems in real-time. It simplifies processes, improves operational efficiency, and enables the medical care fraternity to focus entirely on medical aid administering and caregiving. The synergies between Edge Cloud Computing, 5G, and Intelligent Automation enable Healthcare Service Providers to innovate at scale and transform into Digital Healthcare Services and administer prompt medical care at affordable prices.
Edge Cloud Computing, 5G, Intelligent Automation – Important Use cases
Connected Ambulance for The Golden Hours – The Hospital on Wheels- Before: The As-Is scenarios involving transporting a patient to the hospital harbor a dangerous level of latency. The delayed diagnosis and the time wasted in administering prompt treatment lead to the wastage of time during the Golden Hours.
- After: The Connected Ambulance is powered with Edge Cloud Computing, Intelligent Automation, and 5G networks on specialized private bands from top telecom players. It enables the paramedics to perform sensor-based monitoring of the patient and relay the vital measurements in real-time to the dedicated in-house doctor teams in charge of on-road medic aid administration. The immediate treatment proves life-saving in those Critical Hours. The two-way data streaming in real-time enables to the administration of treatments that are usually not possible in a regular ambulance. The CRP, defibrillators, and Haptic technology-enabled instruments coupled with 5G and Edge Cloud are life-saving.
- Before: Manual records are not accessible at the click of a button. Besides, the files easily get misplaced or lost in fire/rodent menace. So also, third-party systems pose network security threats and give rise to GDPR issues. This creates hindrances in patient monitoring.
- After: Locally available Edge Cloud Computing infrastructure coupled with Intelligent Automation resolves data residency issues. It not only supports data privacy and compliance but also the compilation of data from different sources. It helps maintain patient-wise/folder-wise records locally and access them at ultra-high speeds while administering care to thousands of in-patients and out-patients at the same time as well as improves productivity and efficiency. The localized data helps create a 360-degree holistic profile of the patients and detect life-threatening conditions prior to the actual onset of the disease. The tracking helps to improve the health parameters of the patients through interventions and improve the overall quality of life.
- Before: The patients need constant monitoring post-surgery or after recuperating from a life-threatening condition. This prolongs the stay at the hospital so also increases the follow-up meetings.
- After: Edge Cloud Computing powered sensor-based monitoring post-surgery or the medicine-assisted recuperation from a major life event minimizes the hospital stay. It also reduces in-person follow-ups. It also enables the Healthcare Service Providers to navigate their way through the unavailability of staff for continuous in-person monitoring and shift to remote monitoring.
- Before: Patient monitoring in case of chronic and terminal diseases, involving the heart, kidney, lungs, and other specific medical conditions is critical for managing the patient condition. Travel costs are also prohibitory in situations when medical care infrastructure is sparse in certain geographies.
- After: Edge Cloud Computing infrastructure coupled with 5G helps manage patients who stay in remote geographies. Remote care through hospital-prescribed wearables improves the access to medical care without putting undue pressure on the in-house medical fraternity. It also alleviates the load on the medical care giver’s bandwidth. It supports the patient’s family and kin to record the readings vis-à-vis different parameters and share them with the medical faculty, all in real-time. It improves the quality of life and life span of the population who otherwise do not have immediate access to the medical infrastructure.
- Before: More and more younger population is on the move. Not all can afford stay-at-home medical care.
- After: Wearables registered with Edge Computing enabled hospitals that are synchronized with 5G devices of local caregivers/family and subscribed medical practitioners help timely interventions in case of untoward incidents related to the geriatric population.
- Before: Patients and their kin had to physically take devices to the maintenance units for fine-tuning.
- After: With Edge Cloud Computing, Intelligent Automation, and 5G the devices procured from the authorized centers can be remotely fine-tuned.
In summary
Edge Cloud Computing, Intelligent Automat, and 5G enables the Healthcare Service Providers to scale up their services and extend quality care even to remote geographies. They bring forth a formidable synergy to bring forth solutions that were simply unimaginable in the past.
