Called the 4th industrial revolution, 5G will likely bring huge changes to our daily lives. Most importantly, it seems set to revolutionize health-care.
One of the most exciting and publicized uses of 5G is telesurgery (远程手术). This is when a surgeon remotely performs an operation on a patient. They may not be in the same room, nor even the same country! In January 2019, the world's first remote operation was performed in Fujian province. A doctor controlled robotic arms through a 5G network to remove the liver of a laboratory test animal. Two months later, China completed its first 5G-based human brain operation between a doctor and a patient located more than 4,000 kilometers away.
Team leader Tian Wei told Xinhua News Agency, “The combination of 5G technology and surgical robots is a huge technological advance that will help us share our skills with more patients in distant regions.”
“People across society can now have access to top medical resources. In the future, using robots and 5G will be common. The medical community will be smarter,” he added.
These advances are only possible with 5G.The high speed of the network means there is no significant latency between a doctor's movements in one place and a robot's in the other. This allows doctors far more precision than on a 4G network. It's the same as playing a computer game online. Slow connections mean shaking and unpredictable movements.
5G will also bring everyday benefits to healthcare. Before treatment, 5G will support a large number of high-definition (高清晰度的) video calls with doctors and provide immediate advice for those who can't visit hospitals. After being treated, wearable devices will send data in real time to doctors, allowing hospitals to monitor recovering patients at their homes.
5G technology aims to ensure everyone has access to good health-care. As 5G is rolled out, we may realize the world where robot operations and home health-care become common.
