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Smart Hospitals: Integrating Connectivity and Intelligence

Yashwanth S., Varshini Kulkarni, Chethana H. T.* and Chaitra N. C.

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering, Mysuru, India

Abstract

Health is a crucial part of every person; sometimes, a person may have an unstable condition such as a disease or illness. For people to revert to good condition, they may need intensive care provided by hospitals. Nowadays, hospitals have become busier because of rapid growth in population. Due to this, doctors, nurses, paramedics, and administrative staff are struggling to handle them. A solution to this problem is the use of technology such as the Internet of Things (IoT) to upgrade hospitals to smart hospitals including doing medical works like monitoring patients’ data and performing various scanning tasks at a faster rate.

The “smart hospitals” concept is a comprehensive integration of 5th generation (5G) technology with cloud computing, big data analytics, IoT, and artificial intelligence (AI). The integration of 5G in smart hospitals encompasses several key elements—5G healthcare terminals, including medically integrated terminals, information collection and display terminals, and auxiliary terminals. The 5G healthcare-dedicated network employs network slicing, a dedicated user plane function (UPF), and multi-access edge computation for tailored medical networks, efficient data transmission, and low-latency processing. The healthcare-dedicated cloud manages network capabilities, computation resources, and medical applications. 5G healthcare applications showcase production efficiency and smart medical services. The healthcare-dedicated network architecture includes local, wide-area, and dynamic networks for intra- and inter-hospital services along with out-of-hospital medical services. The integration with existing medical systems and a unified platform management layer ensures seamless cloud–network integration, gradual migration, and efficient resource management. The aim of the chapter is to create a flexible ecosystem utilizing 5G technology for enhanced healthcare services and patient outcomes.

Keywords: 5G, IoT, AI, integration, patients, cloud, hospital, medical

1.1 Introduction

Health is defined as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being; it is not just the absence of disease or illness [1]. The word “hospital” is derived from the Latin word “hospice,” which means guest. Hospitals are institutions that provide medical and surgical treatment along with nursing care for any sick or injured people [22]. Ensuring that those in need of receiving comprehensive healthcare, including preventive and curative treatments, is a fundamental role of social and medical organizations. It serves as a center for biosocial research, as well as a training center for health workers [21].

Hospitals are part of a social structure, which again have a subsystem, like supportive and utility services, clinical services with heterogeneous group of people like doctors, nurses, paramedics, and administrative staff all working together to provide medical care to patients [2]. The pandemic has brought to our attention and intensified the challenges faced by the healthcare industry. Numerous problems exist such as excessive doctor workloads, disgruntled patients, and disorganized facilities where staff members spend hours looking for essential equipment [3]. The rise of “informed patients,” who reject passive treatment, is another significant issue. They expect greater details and a vote during treatment [24]. To be able to transform their facilities into “smart hospitals,” which will enable them to handle the pandemic and center their offerings on the patient, numerous healthcare facilities have already turned to healthcare technology businesses [23].

The main contributions of this chapter are as follows:

1. A new method is defined to implement smart hospitals.
2. This method involves a layered approach using 5G.
3. Comfort and convenience can be improved through this method.
4. A detailed description of this framework is provided.
5. As a result, we can observe that 5G can support high-resolution medical imaging and diagnostic tools.

1.1.1 Exploring the Concept of Smart Hospitals

Smart hospitals are designed to leverage optimized and automated processes based on the information and communication technology (ICT) environment to improve current patient care methods and introduce new features at a minimal cost [3]. Data and technology are used by smart hospitals to increase patient care and operational efficiency. They work in a setting that is highly optimized and automated. These healthcare facilities use data analytics, artificial Intelligence (AI), 5G, and linked equipment. Each hospital will have different designs and common functions for its smart room, but they all enhance patient experience, expedite the clinical process, and promote collaboration.

The patients are clients and should receive personalized attention from healthcare facilities, which serve as the basis for smart hospitals. Since the word “customer” connotes a more engaged and exacting consumer, astute hospitals try their hardest to provide a distinctive experience rather than only concentrate on medical care. They even provide their services to the carers of their patients. For example, a health librarian employed by Stanford Hospital will assist family members [2].

1.1.2 Working of Smart Hospitals

A crowded hospital has many moving components such as patients, hospital employees, medicine, and medical equipment. Artificial intelligence automation offers a chance to streamline the operations throughout the institution. Even while a patient cannot always have a doctor or nurse by their side, patients can be closely monitored by a mix of smart sensors and intelligent video analytics, which can notify medical professionals when a patient is in distress and needs care. For example, patients in an intensive care unit (ICU) are linked to monitoring equipment that takes their vital signs continuously. Many of these beep repeatedly with different alerts, which occasionally causes medical professionals to miss the alarm from a single sensor. The smart hospital can be compared to an octopus. The secure server of the organization, which houses and manages all the facility’s data, serves as its brain. Every department within its tentacles—radiology lab, ICU, emergency room (ER), and operating room, for example—is covered in sensors, or “octopus’ suckers,” that gather information from their environment. It would be impossible for the octopus to respond quickly throughout its entire body based on information sensed by a single arm if each tentacle functioned independently. The octopus can adapt to its changing surroundings because each tentacle relays data back to the central brain.

Similar to this, the smart hospital is a hub-and-spoke system with sensors placed throughout the building that may relay important information back to a central hub, assisting in the making of choices that affect the entire facility. Artificial intelligence would notify personnel in the recovery room to get ready for the patient’s arrival, for example, if video feeds in the operating room indicate that a surgical procedure is almost finished.

Medical device companies, academic medical centers, and startups are using an end-to-end AI platform that integrates with the entire hospital network to power smart hospital solutions. This platform powers everything from medical devices running real-time applications to secure servers that store and process data over an extended period. It is compatible with several software libraries, cloud, edge, and data center infrastructure, as well as international partner ecosystem. Data are compiled by smart hospitals using intricately linked systems. The different systems like lighting, climate control, and shading are combined in one infrastructure (total room automation) at the ward level, where integration begins. Smart hospitals are patient-focused establishments that exchange data with other organizations and are integrated into an ecosystem. Programmers for healthcare management are offered in a variety of settings within this ecosystem, such as patient homes and gyms. Hospitals are generally designed to handle sophisticated treatments, such as critical care and surgery. Technologywise, smart hospitals use the Internet of Things (IoT) and employ a variety of new technologies such as big data analytics, 5G, AI, augmented reality (AR), and cloud platforms. The architecture of smart hospitals is shown in Figure 1.1.

1.2 Implementation of Smart Hospitals

The implementation of 5G in smart hospitals involves the integration of 5G technology across various layers and devices of the healthcare system. The key aspects of how 5G is implemented in smart hospitals are given here:

1. 5G Healthcare Terminals

   Medically Integrated Terminals: These serve as a gateway to 5G access, enabling medical devices without the inbuilt 5G capability to access the 5G-based healthcare dedicated network.

   Figure 1.1 Architecture of smart hospitals [15].

   Information Collection and Display Terminals: These include wearable devices, smart boxes, video terminals, first-aid kits, and imaging equipment, which...