The latest standard of broadband technology continues to make waves in 2021. But what about medtech?

Cellphone using 5G (Imagy by Frederik Lipfert on Unsplash)

Wireless tech companies such as Qualcomm are predicting download speeds as high as 10 gigabits per second as next-generation 5G cellular networks roll out worldwide.

The open question in medtech is how quickly companies will take advantage of the super-speedy connectivity for their own products.

“5G is about bringing more capacity and speed to the pipes,” said Don Jones, a member of the advisory council at BrightInsight and a veteran of the digital healthcare space. Jones spent more than 11 years building Qualcomm’s healthcare group.

“What you have to analyze is, ‘Can healthcare take advantage of what essentially amounts to these bigger pipes?’ Because more data can be shoved through them with more speed,” Jones said during a recent interview with Medical Design & Outsourcing.

Put into practice, those increased speeds and “pipe” sizes can bring data together to enable everything from robotic telesurgery to better decision-making on vital therapies such as drug delivery.

Get the full story at our sister site, Medical Design & Outsourcing.