At precisely 10.30 am, while walking beside the Amsterdam canals, your chest suddenly tightens. A searing pain shoots across your chest and down your arm. Within seconds your heart has stopped, and you’re slumped on the sidewalk. Your life flashes before your eyes.
Jeroen Tas
Chief Innovation & Strategy Officer, Philips
Fortunately for you, 5G is still on the case. By 10.30 and 40 seconds a small aircraft hanger, no bigger than a dog kennel, is sliding open on the roof of a nearby office 2km away to reveal a high-performance drone, its cargo bay ‘locked and loaded’ with an automatic external defibrillator (AED). 5G has already monitored the AED’s state of readiness and knows it’s set to go. At a speed of 80 km/hour, flight time is around one and a half minutes. By 10.30 and 120 seconds it has you on visual, and thanks to its 5G connectivity, so do the paramedics in the ambulance speeding towards you so they know what to expect. By 10.30 and 150 seconds the drone has landed, and the AED’s electrodes are attached to your chest. Twenty seconds later your heart is shocked back into life. Thanks to 5G’s location, connectivity and IoT (Internet-of-Things) capabilities, time-to-defib has been a mere 2 minutes 50 seconds, well within the 4 to 6 minute period after which a lack of oxygen to your brain could cause serious damage.
But that’s not the end of the 5G story. Your heart is beating but you’re not yet out of the woods. Your heart attack and subsequent cardiac arrest was caused by a ruptured plaque – a lump of debris in a major cardiac artery that is still restricting the supply of oxygen to your heart. Fortunately, the AED’s 5G connectivity has already sent back critical ECG data to the ambulance crew and, even more importantly, to the emergency medical center where you’ll be taken – the one most appropriate to your needs where the necessary resources have already been put on stand-by to treat you. The 5G data from the AED is already providing the paramedics and doctors with valuable diagnostic information about the type of treatment you’ll need.
Via a 5G patch and an app on your smartwatch, it tracked your progress through the entire rehabilitation process, helped you make the lifestyle choices that will protect your heart against further attacks, prompted you to take your medication at the appropriate time, and kept you connected to your community-based care teams. Thanks to 5G and the delivery of seamless connected care that it enables, you’re back on your feet and enjoying life again.
Only 5% of people survive sudden cardiac arrest and over 7 million lives are lost. This is why Philips is actively supporting cardiac emergency care programs like Heart Safe City in Dubai and Mecca. 5G will contribute to real-time acute and chronic care. It will not only help people on an individual level, it will also enable hospitals to make better use of resources and deliver better care at lower cost – a topic I will cover in more detail in the coming months.
Of course, the technologies we use every day need to be 100% safe. There is ongoing debate among scientists as new networks and cellular technology evolve. Although to date, no adverse health effects related to 5G have been found or confirmed, it is good to know that the scientific community is actively continuing to research this area.
*Articles part of the ‘Future of Healthcare’ series give a glimpse of what the future of healthcare could potentially look like. They are not intended to be a reflection of today’s healthcare, products or services, or of future business roadmaps.
Chief Innovation & Strategy Officer
Jeroen is an experienced global executive and entrepreneur with a track record of leading innovation in the healthcare, information technology and financial services industries. Leading the company’s global Innovation & Strategy organization, he’s responsible for creating a pipeline of innovative business propositions that address emerging customer needs and enable a high-growth, profitable health continuum strategy.
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