Construction of 5G all-wireless network and information system for cabin hospitals

J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2020 Jun 1;27(6):934-938. doi: 10.1093/jamia/ocaa045.

Abstract

The epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) broke out in Wuhan, China, in early 2020. In an effort to curb the spread of the epidemic, the government has requisitioned a variety of venues and plant buildings and built more than 20 cabin hospitals to receive patients with mild symptoms within 48 hours. Under this circumstance, we worked out a 5G all-wireless solution to divide the overall network system of the cabin hospital into multiple network units by function. While ensuring good signal coverage of the local unit, each network unit was independently connected to the host hospital's data center over a virtual private network (VPN) tunnel built on the 5G wireless network. Our successful experience with the application of this 5G + VPN all-wireless network system well points to the bright prospect of 5G wireless network. In addition, the 5G + VPN solution can also be used for multihospital network interconnection and rapid network recovery during the failure of wired network.

Keywords: 5G; all-wireless network; cabin hospital; information system.

MeSH terms

  • Betacoronavirus*
  • COVID-19
  • Cell Phone*
  • China / epidemiology
  • Computer Communication Networks*
  • Coronavirus Infections / epidemiology*
  • Electronic Health Records
  • Epidemics / prevention & control
  • Hospital Information Systems*
  • Humans
  • Mobile Health Units
  • Organizational Case Studies
  • Pandemics
  • Pneumonia, Viral / epidemiology*
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Telemedicine*
  • Wireless Technology*