Samsung uses 5G to fuel the future of smart hospitals

The news: Samsung’s South Korea-based Samsung Medical Center is taking a big step toward becoming a 5G-powered, robotics-enabled hospital by undergoing an infrastructure assessment via the HIMSS Infrastructure Adoption Model (INFRAM).

What is INFRAM? It’s a blueprint for digital health advancement developed by HIMSS that consists of eight stages of digital health integration, like having a private cloud strategy (Stage 3) and home-based telemonitoring (Stage 7).

• Samsung is currently trying to obtain Stage 6 certification: hybrid cloud infrastructure and automation tools for virtual and non-virtual platforms.

Samsung’s digital health push: Here’s a recap of some of the biggest strides Samsung has made in digital health lately.

• Back in April, Samsung partnered with remote patient monitoring (RPM) firm Livmor to secure a deal with the US Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) to roll out an RPM platform for cardiology care.
• In June, its R&D hub (Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology) unveiled a prototype heart-monitoring display that can be stretched to attach comfortably to human skin and can measure real-time heart rate data.
• Samsung showcased its latest smart hospital display and telehealth partnership with Logitech at the August 2021 HIMSS conference.
• And in September 2020, Samsung partnered with health insurer Centene to distribute smartphones in rural communities in the US to expand virtual care access.

The bigger picture: Samsung seems focused on remote patient monitoring and smart hospitals—and having a fully functioning 5G-powered smart hospital could help it attract more health system and hospital customers in different global markets.

5G can drive cost savings, increase patient access to quality care, and alleviate many current limitations of RPM and virtual care—which are critical to developing a smart hospital.

In fact, many health systems view 5G as the most important technology for facilitating their digital transformation.

• About two-thirds (66%) of C-level healthcare executives said that was the case for their organization, while fewer respondents said so of AI (47%) and cybersecurity (42%), according to an RSM survey published in June 2020.

However, it’s also important to consider how US hospitals and health systems face unique barriers since, unlike South Korea or other countries, there’s no centralized, government-sponsored healthcare agency, making challenges like interoperability more cumbersome.

Dig deeper: Check out our Smart Hospitals Report to learn more about the use cases and best practices for implementing digital health technologies that’ll make hospitals “smart.”