5G as enabler for Digital Healthcare

Abstract

Healthcare in rural areas faces specific challenges, which make homecare of elderly people and cross-sectoral integrated care of chronically ill and multimorbid patients very complex and costly. Mobility and logistics are among other issues that need to be solved in this context. Therefore, it will be crucial to realize the potential of innovative solutions along the complete healthcare value chain, in order to deliver patient focused healthcare according to a value-based-healthcare-approach in the future. Against this background it is the objective of the project 5G4 Healthcare, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, to establish a platform based on 5G technology, that enables the testing and the evaluation of digital applications in the context of rural healthcare. Consequently, the project 5G4 Healthcare aims at assessing the feasibility, opportunities and limitations of 5G regarding efficiency and effectiveness improvements in rural healthcare in order to derive recommendations and scalable solutions.