'It changes the game': The head of health and life sciences at Intel breaks down how 5G will impact healthcare
- Jennifer Esposito, general manager of chipmaker Intel's health and life sciences group, is on a mission to get healthcare companies to be the first to try new technology.
- It's a big task for an industry that's historically slow to disruption.
- Esposito sees 5G networks playing an important role in transforming healthcare by allowing doctors for example to practice remote surgery or set up virtual intensive care units.
Jennifer Esposito is on a mission.
Her goal: get healthcare on board with new technology.
"I want healthcare to be the first one to go try and leverage 5G for example, or IOT," Esposito, the general manager of chipmaker Intel's health and life sciences group, told Business Insider, referring to new technologies that are changing the way we connect with the world around us.
"I think that's where we can help, is thinking about the horizontal infrastructure that needs to be built."
Intel, for its part, is developing chips for smartphones and other devices that enable the 5G networks. The plan is for 5G networks to start rolling out in some parts of the US by the end of 2018.
When it comes to 5G, Esposito said, it's going to be a much bigger jump than previous moves from say, 3G to 4G. The network, for instance, will be able to respond faster so there isn't as much lag time, and it'll be more reliable so there'll be less concern of service cutting out on you.
That, and with 5G, there are ways to designate certain slices of the network just for healthcare, ideally making it more secure when dealing with sensitive health information. That could open the door for doctors to set up virtual intensive care units or conduct surgery remotely.
"One of the arguments about not using wireless to do certain things is that they don't know if it'll be there when they need it," Esposito said. For example, a surgeon wouldn't carry out a remote surgery on a wireless network if he or she had concerns about the network's reliability and quality. 5G could change that.
"It changes the game in terms of using networks to facilitate healthcare," Esposito said.
Intel's not the only tech company considering the impact 5G will have on medicine. Thomas Kluz, head of healthcare investing at Qualcomm Ventures, the venture arm of rival chipmaker Qualcomm, told Business Insider that he expects 5G to help provide stronger service that can reach parts of hospitals that haven't been able to get service in the past. Qualcomm is also working on 5G.
"I think that technology infrastructure needs to be seamless and needs to work 100% of the time in order for the provider to really incorporate them into their day to day," he said.
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