Wi-Fi 6, 5G Could Be Turning Point for Health IT Infrastructure

Healthcare organizations are deploying more bandwidth-intensive connected medical devices and mobile devices, which are straining existing health IT infrastructure. Next-generation wireless networking technologies, such as Wi-Fi 6 and 5G cellular, could be the solution to this growing problem. To ease network congestion, the Wi-Fi 6 wireless networking standard is expected to provide higher data rates, increased capacity, strong performance with many connected devices, and improved power efficiency compared with previous Wi-Fi versions. Meanwhile, the 5G cellular standard promises much higher speeds and lower latency than 4G and previous cellular versions, which will not only help with medical and mobile device use in hospitals but also with telemedicine and remote care.