Airtel, Apollo Hospitals and Cisco partner to create 5G Connected Ambulance

Bharti Airtel (Airtel) announced on Friday its partnership with Apollo Hospitals and Cisco to create a 5G Connected Ambulance that transforms access to healthcare and save lives in emergency situations.

"Healthcare is one of the most promising use cases for 5G, and we are delighted to deepen our partnerships with Apollo Hospitals and Cisco to bring some innovative use cases for the Indian market," said Ajay Chitkara, Director & CEO, Airtel Business, Bharti Airtel.

The custom-designed 5G Connected Ambulance features the latest medical equipment, patient monitoring applications, and telemetry devices that transmit the patient health data to the hospital in real-time. The high-speed 5G network relays the real-time geo-location of every Ambulance to the hospital's command center, ensuring that the nearest Ambulance reaches the critical patient

Additionally, there are cameras, camera-based Headgear, and Bodycams for paramedic staff - all connected to the ultra-fast and low latency Airtel 5G network. The paramedic staff in the ambulance can use the cameras to collaborate with the ER doctors at the hospital who are equipped with technologies like AV/VR to undertake basic procedures, if needed. Doctors can guide the paramedic to carry out a procedure while on the move.

The demo was conducted in Bengaluru over the 5G trial spectrum allotted to Airtel by the Department of Telecom, the company said in a statement.

Commenting on this development, Dr Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Group, said, "The criticality of the 'Golden hour' is well known. It can mean the difference between life and death for seriously ill or trauma patients in an emergency. Studies also indicate that pre-hospital time management should become a management objective."

"These insights propelled us to collaborate with Airtel on the 5G connected ambulance project and use 5G in order to utilize the disruption-free, lag-free connectivity it provides," she added.