5G can improve home health services in rural areas

Cristina Campillo, the Deputy Director of Digital Infrastructures and Electronic Communications in the Catalan Government, and Joan Guanyabens, the director of the TIC Salut Social Foundation, today presented in Móra d’Ebre the results of a pilot test in the field of health and 5G carried out on two use cases: mobile ultrasound and a home monitoring system for chronically-ill patients.

The TDA 5G Rural project is being led by the Secretariat of Telecommunications and Digital Transformation and the i2CAT Foundation. One of this project’s aims is to identify use cases that can aid the deployment of the 5G network in rural areas of Catalonia in the short and medium term, while placing the technology at the service of citizens. Thanks to this strategy, implementation of 5G in the health environment is being worked on in the Terres de l’Ebre 5G area with the collaboration of the TIC Salut Social Foundation.

As Guanyabens pointed out, “5G deployment in rural areas such as Terres de l’Ebre is a key opportunity to incorporate improvements in health care processes and telecare-based services such as remote health monitoring”.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Director of Infrastructures emphasised that “the strategy for deploying advanced digital technology in the area democratises access and levels equal opportunities for people, wherever they live”.

Ribera d’Ebre County Council, the Territorial Management of ICS in Terres de l’Ebre, SalutEbre, and care and management professionals from Tortosa Hospital, Mora d’Ebre County Hospital, Altebrat Primary Care Team, Tortosa Primary Care Centre, Flix Primary Care Centre and the Sagessa group home support team all took part in the study. “Starting a use case for health and 5G that is initially applied in Terres de l’Ebre fills us with pride and gives the Coebrelab 5G project great significance,” said Jesús Álvarez, the Vice-president of Ribera d’Ebre County Council and the councillor responsible for the ICT Area. He also highlighted the “very good results at a technological level and above all at a social level arising from the county’s commitment to the social and digital innovation laboratory. With almost twenty projects promoted it is the most active of the nine in the country”.

Project and use cases

The Terres de l’Ebre region was selected to carry out the pilot test as it is a highly rural area, made up of a large number of low-population municipalities. Due to the low number of inhabitants, there are not many health centres in the area and they are far from some of the municipalities, forcing patients and health professionals to travel.

The aim of this project was to define, deploy and test different scenarios for remote health services, taking into account the technological options provided by 5G in Terres de l’Ebre. After analysing different medical scenarios, the working group established that the pilot would have two use cases: mobile ultrasound and monitoring of chronically-ill patients.

On the one hand, the results of the tests confirm that 5G coverage allows the transmission of ultrasound images without the alterations caused by 4G coverage. Therefore, mobile ultrasound has emerged as a key use case applicable to the field of health, as it enables the creation of a mobile primary care centre with a medical vehicle equipped with an ultrasound machine, which allows this technology to be taken directly to the areas that need it. Getting to where patients are can increase the early detection of diseases or conditions that require a rapid response.

On the other hand, in the case of the chronically-ill patient monitoring scenario, the report shows that the equipment must be configured by a technical professional and personalised settings must be determined for each user, which adds complexity to its deployment. However, once it has been set up, home use by the patient is very straightforward for people with low technological skills, but not possible for individuals without basic knowledge of ICT use.

TDA 5G RURAL: Advanced Digital Technologies to deploy 5G in rural areas of Catalonia

TDA 5G Rural is a research and innovation project promoted by the Catalan Government as part of its Digital Catalonia strategy. It is led by the i2CAT Foundation. It aims to define a deployment model for 5G technology with maximum benefits and minimum investment to speed up deployment in rural areas of Catalonia and thus improve competitiveness and services. The main objective is to combat the digital divide in our country through a new model based on public-private collaboration and active infrastructure sharing.

Thanks to the lessons learned from the pilot test in Terres de l’Ebre, the organisations participating in the report are now working to validate a 5G medical kit for a mobile primary care centre service, which can provide home health services to 4,000 villages with more than 400,000 inhabitants in the 6 non-metropolitan health regions of Catalonia.

You can download the full report at https://i2cat.net/tda-5g-rural/