5G and IoMT: Moving Towards Modernization of Healthcare

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5G and IoMT: Moving Towards Modernization of
Healthcare
Biswajit Bhattacharya
Former Student, Biju Patnaik University of Technology, Rourkela
Infosys Ltd.
Jagatsinghpur, India
Abstract— The much-awaited fifth-generation of cellular
wireless technology has the ability to revolutionize healthcare
with its high speed and massive connection power. Along with its
many primary advantages, it will also empower medical
innovations via extended reality (augmented/virtual/mixed
reality), artificial intelligence, remote medical learning,
patientcare, and monitoring, to name a few. The healthcare
domain’s critical and time-sensitive nature makes it all the more
essential to have continuous access to near real-time data to
support and derive full use of the advanced technologies today.
Currently, healthcare uses the existing 3G/4G network and
other communication technologies extensively in smart health
care applications, and they are constantly being developed to
meet the needs of future smart health applications. As the smart
healthcare market expands the number of applications
connecting to the network will generate data that will vary in
size and formats. This will place complex demands on the
network in terms of bandwidth, data rate and latency, among
other factors. As this smart healthcare market grows rapidly,
the connectivity need for a large number of devices and
machines with sensor-based applications in hospitals will
increase the need to implement Massive-Machine Type
Communication. The future smart healthcare networks are
expected to be a combination of 5G and IoT devices which are
expected to increase network coverage, network performance
and address security related concerns with accuracy and
correctness.
Keywords—5G, IoT, Healthcare, Technology
I. INTRODUCTION
It is the beginning of the high-tech era in the healthcare
technology sector. New-age technologies such as artificial
intelligence, cloud computing, IoT, and bigdata have become
a common topic of discussion amongst healthcare
professionals to cater to patients with high-quality services
while lowering the costs substantially.
5G and IoMT are the future of current healthcare system
where every medical device will be better connected and
monitored over internet by healthcare providers with ensuring
security of patient data. This offers a faster and low-cost
alternative to existing system that we have in all over the
world.
Smart healthcare has a significant role in the economy. In
Europe, the average spending on smart healthcare is
approximately 10% of gross domestic product (GDP), and up
to 99 billion Euros of healthcare cost can be saved through
smart healthcare by 2020. The global IoT in healthcare
market is projected to reach US$ 181.4 Billion in 2022,
anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 18.0%, reaching US$ 952.3
Billion by 2032. [1]
II. SMART HEALTHCARE
Smart healthcare provides healthcare services through smart
gadgets (e.g., smartphones, smartwatch, wireless smart
glucometer, wireless blood pressure monitor) and networks
(e.g., Body area network, wireless local area network,
extensive area network. The intelligent gadgets process health
information gathered from numerous sources, including
sensors and biomedical systems (i.e., the application having
information about medical science such as diagnosis,
treatment, and prevention of disease). In short, smart
healthcare allows people from different background and
walks of life (e.g., doctors, nurses, patient caretakers, family
members, and patients to access the right information and
obtain the right solutions, which are mainly to minimize
medical errors and improve efficiency, as well as to reduce
cost at the right time in the medical field.
Fig.1 Smart Healthcare Diagram
III. 5G
5G is the fifth generation of wireless network technology.
The central theme of 5G, just like the previous fourth-
generation, is speed. Every new generation of wireless
network is significantly faster and more capable than the last.
The first-generation of the cellular network, i.e., 1G, was
focusing primarily on improving the voice quality on the
phone; second-generation or 2G was launched to enhance the
voice quality further and introduced the concept of sending
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and receiving text messages. 3G, in addition to improved call
and texting experience, also brought the internet to our
cellphones, and fourth-generation or 4G took data sharing to
another level with significantly faster wireless internet
connectivity. 5G represents another step forward with super-
fast connectivity, ultra-low latency, and widespread coverage.
The global 5G technology market is expected to reach
$667.90 billion by 2026, with a CAGR of 122.3% from 2021
to 2026.[2]
IV. IOT
There are different definitions of IoT, and based on the
definition from IoT European Research Cluster (IECR)
project, Internet of Things is dynamic network infrastructure
which has the capability of self-configuration on the bases of
interoperable and standard communication protocols. In other
words, IoT is flexible, complex, and dynamic network
infrastructure that connects anyone, anything, anytime,
anywhere, for any services. The internet of things has
numerous applications in healthcare, from remote monitoring
to smart sensors and medical device integration. There is now
a growing trend in the synthesis of sensors and sensor-based
systems with device-to-device (D2D) communications.
V. INTERNET OF MEDICAL THINGS (IOMT)
The IoMT is a connected infrastructure of medical devices,
software applications, and health systems and services.
Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) systems are increasingly
diverse and prevalent and are excellent candidates for
preventing, predicting, and monitoring emerging infectious
diseases like COVID-19. The use of IoMT as a health
monitoring system provides real-time surveillance through
the use of wearable health-monitoring devices, Wireless
Body Area Networks (WBAN), artificial intelligence (AI),
and cloud-based remote health testing.
Fig. 2 IoMT Diagram
VI. HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY TRENDS DRIVING
THE ADOPTION OF 5G AND IOMT
A. Shift in demographics
The 2019 revision of the United Nation’s World
Population Prospects estimated the global population of
7.7billion. It is expected to rise to 8.5 billion by 2030 and
9.7 billion by 2050. As life expectancy is increasing year
on year, the world population is bound to grow older. For
the first time in history, in2018, persons aged 65 and
above outnumbered children under 5years of age. The
rise in the aging population and the prevalence of chronic
or lifestyle diseases boost RPM systems’ demand for
homecare.
B. Big data analytics
Big data has made a remarkable impact on the healthcare
industry in oncology, neurology, cardiology, and other
specialties. The extensive use of wearable devices and
smartphones has helped to accumulate a large volume of
patient-specific data.
Big data enables healthcare professionals to utilize
population data for new research and personalized
treatment opportunities.[3]
C. Remote monitoring systems in hospitals and eHealth
Many Hospitals have an electronic patient data
management system to manage admitted patients’ data,
including prescriptions, diagnostics, analytical test
results, medical reports, etc. A well-equipped hospital
also has modern PDMS, which helps collect data in real-
time such as cardiac monitors, pulse oximetry, blood
pressure, etc. This allows doctors to fully optimize
patient care, eventually leading to a significant amount of
time-saving and reduced unnecessary re-admissions.
VII. OBJECTIVES OF SMART HEALTHCARE
A. Resource optimization
Resource optimization in one of the key objectives for
smart healthcare. Resource optimization techniques are
used to minimize energy consummation while
maximizing network lifetime. Resource optimization
techniques play an important role in 5G based smart
healthcare network. A huge number of IoT devices
enable smart healthcare, which can produce a massive
amount of data and consume more bandwidth of the
network. Improper resource optimization can lead to
several issues in network.
B. Quality of service (QoS)
Quality of service (QoS) refers to the ability of the
network to achieve high bandwidth and handle other
network performance such as error rate, latency and
uptime. QoS also includes managing and controlling
network resources on priority basis for a different type of
data (audio, video, files) in the network. The main goal
of QoS is to provide priority to networks, including low
latency, dedicated bandwidth, controlled jitter, and
enhanced loss characteristics.[4]
C. Energy efficiency
Energy efficiency has become the main criterion for
designing smart healthcare network, not just due to the
environmental concerns, but also because of the nature of
IoT devices participating in the network. Due to the
density of access point in the network increases the
energy consumption of the network. Therefore, energy
efficient schemes are required to increase the lifetime of
the devices deployed in the network.
International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
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VIII. IOMT FOR SMART HEALTHCARE
The medical ecosystem has evolved significantly with the
rapid advancements in science, technology, and medicine,
and the proliferation of smart medical devices. In addition,
the advancement of communication technologies has turned
various medical services into accessible virtual systems and
remote distance applications.[6]
Implementations of the IoT into medical systems have had a
tremendous impact on public life and in the healthcare
industry. Researchers and industries are moving towards
IoMT applications in order to provide better, cheaper, and
accessible healthcare. In addition to these, IoMT medical
ecosystem includes cloud data, applications (online, mobile,
real-time, and non-real-time), Wearable sensor devices, and
security. Below figure compares a traditional medical
ecosystem with a more advanced IoMT-based ecosystem.[8]
One of the recent such advancements in this field is Apple
Smart Watch. It has various features as compared to other
devices. But what makes it a technological marvel is that it
has certain features like Crass/Fall detection, ECG, Spo2,
Period tracker and many more. Crass/Fall detection has
helped numerous people when they have faced with some
kind of accident or fall, it has contacted the emergency
services and informed the emergency contacts as well.
Similarly, its other features like Period cycle tracker has
helped women keep track of their menstrual cycle and
personal well-being, Spo2 has helped many people in keeping
track of their blood-oxygen levels during the recent covid-19
pandemic and ECG has helped many people from heart
related ailments by notifying them proactively about their
irregular heart rhythms and possible heart attacks and other
medical complications.[8]
Fig. 3 Traditional vs Smart Healthcare System
IX. 5G FOR SMART HEALTHCARE
Smart healthcare depends on various short range and long-
range communication technologies to transport data between
devices and servers. Most of the short-range wireless
technologies are Wi-Fi, Zig-Bee, Bluetooth, and Wireless
Metropolitan Area Network (WiMAX) which are primarily
used for short communication in smart healthcare such as
BAN (Body Area Network).
The 5G is already capable enough to fulfill some of the
requirements of smart healthcare and it is going to further
enhance its capabilities to strengthen the smart healthcare
infrastructure.
The 5G network can minimize latency up to 1 ms, which can
lead to new telesurgery applications with strict latency
requirements. In future, modern solutions might be possible
in the healthcare environment. For example, surgeons can
perform operations with robots virtually from anywhere in
the world.
A key feature of the 5G network is to support higher
frequencies (including above than 10 GHz frequencies). More
spectrum is available by using these frequencies, which leads
to very high transmission rates (on the order of Gbps).
Physicians can see high-resolution pictures remotely and
deployed healthcare solution with ultrahigh definition (UHD)
content through the high-speed 5G network.
To connect large numbers of sensors and biomedical
equipment’s, low-cost devices with high battery life is
important. For continuous remote monitoring, the aim is to
connect self-sustainable devices in the network for the full
duration of medical operation. In 5G, low-power sensors are
intended to work on the same battery for 10 years. Therefore,
the network lifetime must be improved.[8]
X. OPEN ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
Along with numerous benefits of these technologies, there are
numerous challenges and open research issues in adopting 5G
and IoMT for smart healthcare.
A smart healthcare network consists of billions of devices.
Smart healthcare concept can succeed only if it can provide
connectivity to every device present in the network with the
capabilities of sensing to produce important information.
However, guaranteeing connectivity in smart healthcare
postures many challenges, such as:
• Guaranteeing connectivity to huge devices deployed
in the network in wide range.
• Providing connectivity to high mobility (i.e., high-
speed ambulance, carrying patients) devices in the
network.
Big data analytics is a key research direction in smart
healthcare. In smart healthcare, billions of devices are
connected, which can produce a huge amount of data and
information for analysis. This data can consist of information
about user private data (i.e., Patient Data) and from the
surrounding environment (i.e., ECG, Heart Rate monitoring).
For example, data produced by locally connected devices can
be analyzed efficiently by adopting deep learning algorithms.
The key issues that must be addressed are:
• During data analysis, user privacy must be
protected.
• Data secrecy must be provided for sensitive data.
• Infrastructure must be provided to collect, analyze,
and store a massive amount of data.[3][9]
Implementing security on IoMT devices is a challenging task
due to the constrained-device criteria and distributed
architecture of IoMT ecosystem. Additionally, these devices
are located at the edge of a network and, in some cases, are
remote or located within the body, etc. and not easily
accessible. Moreover, data protection and safe
communication that adhere to security requirements are
required to make IoMT systems secure. Many IoT systems
suffer from lack or weak authentication as a result of
International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181http://www.ijert.org
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Vol. 11 Issue 10, October-2022
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constraints in hardware, energy consumption, and other
computing resources. Unfortunately, this has presented
opportunities for cyberattacks.[9]
XI. CONCLUSION
This paper presents an overview of recent advancements and
use cases along with existing and future opportunities on the
aspect of 5G and IoMT for smart healthcare solutions.
Health systems currently face challenges related to shortages
of critical medical professionals, long waiting times, rising
demand for services, and financial constraints. 5G and IoMT
could help in easing some constraints by shortening the time
healthcare experts invest in repetitive activities (using AI
methods and IoT devices), thus allowing them to focus on
other activities, such as seeing more patients and indulging in
more R&D for new methods and techniques in healthcare.
[13]
Moreover, these recent trends show that people are taking
their health more seriously and taking proactive steps to
prevent them from getting sick or facing any critical
conditions by actively focusing on mental health, physical
health and safeguarding themselves from any unknown
diseases by investing in sound healthcare practices. And this
trend will certainly grow in terms of growing population,
changing demographic and rapid growth of economy of the
entire world post these pandemic times.
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International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181http://www.ijert.org
IJERTV11IS100098 (This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.)
Published by :
www.ijert.org
Vol. 11 Issue 10, October-2022
276