Kingston University and Pangea team up on 5G tech to help emergency services

Kingston University has teamed up with Pangea to provide ambulances with 5G technology to help A&E doctors offer life-saving advice to paramedic teams.

The tech will enable a live video link to be transmitted to staff at the hospital, so they can advise on the best course of action, whether that's to transport the patient to hospital or offer are at the location.

Kingston and Pangea Connected's innovation involves compressing the video to provide detailed insights into the patient's conditions. This is delivered over a high-speed connection so doctors can respond in real time.

"The idea is to give doctors and surgeons a virtual environment to see what they are dealing with in real time. It could help with triaging care or even allow medics to advise ambulance crews on treatment, improving chances of survival in life or death cases," said professor of wireless communications Christos Politics.

"It would mean medical teams know exactly what they are dealing with when the patient arrives at hospital, which would be a real game changer."

Kingston University and Pangea will also develop other technologies that can be used by paramedics and other emergency teams thanks to government funding. These innovations could be used by other first responders in future, whether in the healthcare sector, by the police or fire service. For example, another application could be for footage to be streamed back to a local police station from police-issued body cameras.

"Alongside speed increases which will rival those delivered by optical fibre, 5G will incorporate IoT technology, which opens up so many possibilities for the health sector and across the emergency services through the use of smart devices," Professor Politics said.