5G-Enabled Healthcare in Mobile Scenarios: Challenges and Implementation Considerations

Wireless connectivity delay, disruption, or failure can significantly affect the performance of wireless-enabled medical devices, which in turn causes potential risks to the patient. Notably, the challenges related to connectivity provisioning are exacerbated in the fifth-generation (5G)- enabled healthcare use cases where mobility is utilized. In this article, we describe relevant 5Genabled healthcare use cases involving mobility and identify the connectivity challenges that they face. We then illustrate practical implementation considerations, tradeoffs, and future research directions for enabling reliable 5G healthcare transmissions. This is done through simulation of connected ambulances as an example use-case.