HEALTH, MEDICINE AND 5G, THE CHALLENGE OF THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY (BY DR YOUNES KALAKHY)

9:00 a.m. at 120 km from the Chinese capital Beijing, stands a pharaonic and pilot project launched in 2017, more exactly in the city of Xiongan, it is the smart city, a city with all the infrastructure connected, autonomous mini buses, mobile food distributors, cashless stores and supermarkets, the digital verbalization of traffic violations, digital hospitals, access and payment by facial or retinal recognition, and the icing on the cake, an ecological concept that would charm the most extremist of environmentalists , an almost exhaustive intelligent automation of city services.

“Our goal is for everything to be accessible in 15 minutes,” says Yu Hangzhu, spokesperson for the smart city Xiongan project, a candidate for the title of the world capital of artificial intelligence.

All this titanic and ambitious work provided by the Chinese government has been made possible thanks to the deployment of 5G technology, a milestone in the history of telecommunications. Between supporters and detractors, 5G technology ten times more powerful than 4G, will control all the flow and data of connected objects !!!

What is 5G technology? What stake will it present in the future and what will be its contribution, in particular in the medical field?

Are these the questions on which we will shed light and we will spread an analysis on the question and the main stake of the year 2021?

 

5G, a technological revolution and global geostrategic challenges

5G technology is being deployed to address three major issues: tremendous data growth, the over-connectivity of modern society, and the saturation of data storage and sharing capacity.

The move towards technology that more or less improves the capacity of the global telecommunications network is undoubtedly inevitable. “A faster latency period and the principle of network slicing or constant throughput” explains Emmanuel Paquette, journalist and specialist in new 5G technology.

Ten times more powerful, it is not a simple improvement of its previous 4G, but will give new impetus to connected objects, the democratization of autonomous cars, drone taxis, telemedicine, sectors where data flow must be constant and stable and according to experts 5G will have a positive impact on all sectors: industry, education, health, transport, marketing, employment. Some countries have already initiated 5G projects such as the SMIS (Sustainable Intelligent Mining Systems) project in Sweden involving the mining industry ( https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/730302), and today more than 300 operators have advanced their investment pawns on 5G by 2025, says the head of the “Communication & Collaboration” Business Unit at Orange Business Services Guillaume Boudin. In addition, the 5G market could, according to IHS Markit forecasts, generate $ 12.3 trillion and create 22 million jobs. Enough to stimulate the appetite of companies and start-ups muzzled by the economic crisis and the saturation of world markets !!

The impact of 5G radiation on health: a major controversy?

 

At the center of the Italian boot, in Abruzzo more exactly in the city of L’Aquila which is trying to rise from its ashes after the earthquake that occurred on April 6, 2009, is at the center of the “controversia” of the pylons of the 5G from “telecom italia.” Installed on an experimental basis, they sparked a wave of protest resulting in the signing of a petition to stop the 5G experimentation. The same scene of opposition has been repeated in several European cities: Le Havre, Bern or even in Bordeaux, the new mayor Pierre Hurmic has decided to suspend the experiment and wishes to open a public debate on the effects and the 5G regulations on the health.

The verdict of the impact of 5G on health will be pronounced in the first quarter of the year 2021 after the submission of the final assessment report of the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Health Safety. environmental and labor work (ANSAE). In Switzerland, the debate is also heated and we should refine and especially firmly control the regulation of 5G installations. Experiments to date have not shown any biological effects on the human body as long as we stay below the recommended standards for electromagnetic waves. However, it is the proximity of connected objects in the body to excessive use that would have consequences, in particular oxidative stress and the significant effect on brain memory, explains Martin Roussli Pr at the University of Bale.

5G a strategic and geopolitical issue

 

The deployment of 5G is not limited to an almost absent latency period for downloading a film or for online video games or even medical tele-expertise for remote surgeries … But the stake is much greater than we imagine! it is indeed a fierce commercial competition between 5G equipment manufacturers, in this case the Chinese giant Huawei, which holds 30% of the European market and the world’s largest supplier, and the Scandinavians NOKIA and Ericsson. In addition, it is the question of strategic control of data linked to the crucial question of data protection and espionage that disturbs! A problem that led to the genesis of two world poles, the first led by the Chinese and their juggernaut Huawei and the second Anglo-Saxon led by the Americans.

Official declarations emerge from the responses of the shepherd to the shepherdess, this is what characterizes the issue between the Americans and the Chinese.

“We believe that neither of the two companies Huwei and ZTE, given the link they have with the Chinese government, can be entrusted with infrastructure of crucial importance” explains Mike Rogers, member of the US Congress.

In France there is unanimous concern about the loss of control of sensitive data and state secrets on the one hand, and the inevitable signing of the contract with Huawei with an attractive offer of good value for money, Huawei is now on the market. hot seat accused of introducing spy programs into 5G hardware, something that Chinese founder Ren zhengfei denies outright. Officially, the Minister of the Economy Bruno the Mayor declared: “we protect sites which are sensitive, we ensure respect for national security and I think that our Chinese partners can understand the French position which is clear and balanced: no global ban on Huawei in France but the defense of our national security interests.

Obviously the European orientation is directed towards the progressive exclusion of the Chinese giant. Case to follow!

5G and Medicine

 

Ramaipur a village located in the north of India, the medical van is there, to ensure its teleconsultation mission, with connected equipment, the villagers can now consult a doctor remotely and thus spare them the difficult and sometimes perilous trip to big cities and avoid falling prey to healers and charlatans. An experiment launched by an Indian startup, telemedicine is an ambitious concept to fight against the medical desert in India.

Morocco is one of the countries that launched a pilot project in this area on October 3, 20018, a commendable step on the part of the Ministry of Health with a budget of 29 million dirhams within the Oujda CHU, it s he is a satellite connection between 3 points: the referral center at the CHU, the Beni-Mathar center and the mobile unit, says Sandra Rojo, head of the oriental telemedicine project.

Apart from conventional teleconsultation, there is tele-assistance and tele-expertise where interventions between medical professionals, particularly in surgical fields, can be scheduled despite the great distance, in addition the sharing of medical data is possible through the creation of the DMP ( shared medical record)

The emergence of remote medicine: telemedicine or e-health has known failures and limits since its creation, like any technology under construction, however the advent of 5G would certainly change the situation. So how will 5G influence medical exercise?

In order to analyze the effect of 5G technology on medicine, in particular telemedicine, I would first like to remind you that the concept is based on three principles: teleconsultation, tele-expertise and tele-assistance. Then it is essential to point out that digital technology does not present an alternative to doctors or health professionals as some technophobes think. But a tool at the service of the patient in a difficult health situation characterized by: the presence of the medical desert, the increase in life expectancy, the increase in health expenditure at the institutional level, the appearance of epidemics , medical research, the pharmaceutical industry and the cost of acquiring new generation of medical equipment and devices.

Teleconsultation and remote assistance

It is from a web platform that the patient can contact the doctor. Technological development has made it possible to integrate powerful cameras for certain specific examinations such as the eye, ear or throat, the integration of devices for measuring cardiovascular indicators, etc. The great contribution of 5G remains the quality of the flows of data and the ease of sharing data such as imaging files or shared medical records (DMP), because the risk of network saturation is almost zero. As a result, there would no doubt be a quantitative growth in teleconsultation web platforms around the world where doctors could make the first contact with patients, inform, raise awareness, share medical data,

In France, many companies offer teleconsultation platforms for doctors and have accumulated a lot of experience, especially after the disappointment of the launch of the telemedicine project with a tidy sum of 210 million euros for just 500,000 files!

A failure mainly due to the resistance of health professionals who wish to stay in a comfort zone and were not familiar with the new technological tools. The complexity of applications and data processing is not unrelated to these failures. But, currently, all the efforts made by companies operating in this area have facilitated the handling and editing of data, health professionals who are opening more and more on web platforms and social networks. The creation of training modules specific to telemedicine, such as the one launched at the Faculty of Medicine of Casablanca, is part of this wake. With 5G, the effectiveness of the interoperability of teleconsultation will be there.

In this sense, the covid-19 experience is rich in lessons, the countries which have deployed 5G with teleconsultation platforms are the leaders in the fight against the coronavirus such as China for example or the remote monitoring of patients and remote control. covid-19 indicators such as temperature, respiratory dyspnea, sharing of X-ray imaging files were more effective. Morality, the Chinese experience was able to set up the interoperability of teleconsultation and telemedicine which allowed the Chinese government to effectively control the pandemic, save the taxpayer and optimize the management of human resources.

Another historic event marked the news covid-19 is the construction of the Wuhan hospital in record time thanks to the deployment of 5G: the construction program, robots, human resources management, schedules … a The phenomenal flow of data was piloted in an efficient manner by Chinese engineers who left the whole world under the spell of the Middle Kingdom.

Tele-expertise

Tele-expertise is defined as remote assistance from a doctor to his colleague by sharing clinical cases or outright surgical management. Experiments have already been undertaken but remain limited. What to expect from 5G will certainly usher in a new era in this field, especially with augmented reality technology where a surgeon with a pair of connected glasses could with the speed and quality of the 5G network share the surgical intervention with an expert practically in real conditions, an experiment already launched by the French giant Thales offering an instant transfer of knowledge and experience.

When approaching the medical field, we cannot help but wonder about the fate of the field of medical research. The formalization of big data from around the world and thanks to the logarithms woven by 5G technology will undoubtedly introduce modifications to the current protocols of evidence-based medicine. The transcendent calculations of big data could be projected into the future in order to define new standards for the prevention of stroke or cancer, for example … Coming back to the problem of the COVID-19 vaccine, the time between the discovery of the molecule and the marketing authorization is long, however, as the coronavirus continues to slowly eat away at the human species! And we are only entitled to ask if the data from medical research, 5G technology and biomedical technology were already in place, would they not have made it possible to shorten the times and protocols of clinical trials? A question that will probably be on the agenda of researchers and doctors knowing better the price paid between the start and the end of the epidemic.

Between supporters and opponents, 5G is gradually positioning itself, certainly the contribution of this newcomer to the telecom would be decisive in medicine and in all other sectors, on the other hand the ethical questions linked to the impact on health, the regulation of equipment and frequencies, security and protection of individual and institutional data must be approached with responsibility and above all humanity.

View Article on Quid.ma

 

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