5G in Health and Social Care: Prevention and Community Management

A modern trend in health and care service provision has been to move services accessed by citizens and patients closer to the community or indeed their homes. Increasingly a ‘self service’ or supported ‘selfcare’ goal has been driven by the need to strip cost from the system (non-value-added activity) while activating people to take a greater interest in their own health and wellbeing. This has also been encouraged by a population health model emerging globally which integrates social care, health care and preventative approaches to focus resources where they are most needed and indeed to personalise the ‘offer’ to service users (citizens or patients).

Technology already has a significant role here, for example telemedicine (remote consultations), wearable (physiological data transmission and analytics) and personalised services (perhaps using AI) are all under development. Experience through Covid has emphatically proven the worth of digital connectivity as service enabler. 5G platforms are already being used to serve communities, serving as early adopter exemplars.

This event will be of interest to anyone working in prevention and other community services.

KTN is a delivery partner for UK5G

UK5G is the national innovation network dedicated to the promotion of research, collaboration and the industrial application of 5G in the UK. Its mission is to ensure that the UK is at the forefront of global 5G development. KTN is a delivery partner for UK5G.

About the series

In 2020, UK Healthcare spend accounted for 12.8% of GDP, £269 billion. The NHS alone employs 1.6 million people, treating millions of patients and supporting further millions of citizens in need of help and guidance. Significant injections of additional Government funding were required to help adapt service delivery models and meet increased demand for services related to the pandemic.

Amid Covid-19, the health and social care sectors have introduced new and innovative ways to operate safely and efficiently—yet new challenges have emerged related to treatment delays, on-going infection risk and increased demand on services such as mental health and wellbeing.

5G has the potential to support innovation in these areas and across the sectorsas a whole: facilitating more efficient and effective ways of working. Globally, developed economies share these challenges while emerging economies continuously face extremely challenging conditions and ongoing shortages of skilled workforce, further enhanced by pandemic fallout. Health and Care service delivery has seen an acceleration towards community services (treatment and management away from hospitals)  meaning increased reliance on data and communication systems both in wireless tech and  wired connectivity formats.

5G has great potential to replace and enhance such connectivity and much more besides. It may prove to be a key platform to underpin the innovation in  adjacent  technologies and in ‘best practice’, which will become necessary to build sustainable health, care (and increasingly wellbeing and preventative) service designs for the future.

This series of events will be of interest to anyone involved in contemporary health and care service design or delivery.

• 18th November | What Makes 5G Different?
• 29th November | Prevention and Community Management
• 7th December | NHS Challenges