5G-OR

The shortage of specialized personnel is creating new challenges for hospitals. Operating rooms, with their complex processes, place high demands on staff and are particularly affected by this lack of skilled employees. New approaches are needed to ease the ever-increasing workload. Seamless integration into existing workflows is essential to implement new solutions quickly, effectively, and economically. Above all, automating and digitizing operating‑room workflows offer substantial potential to reduce the burden on medical professionals. Where deep expertise is required, teleoperated robotic systems can eliminate long journeys for specialists or patients. All these advances hinge on one prerequisite: a stable and reliable connection!

This is exactly what a hospital-wide 5G network enables. 5G delivers wireless, stable, low-latency, high-bandwidth connectivity. The use of licensed frequencies significantly increases resilience to interference and gives hospitals greater control over the radio interface. In the 5G-OR project (Establishing the next generation of a 5G-enabled operating room ecosystem to improve patient outcome), experts from Fraunhofer IPA, together with b-com, Charité Berlin, the Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire (IHU) Strasbourg, Reutlingen University, RDS, Karl Storz, and SectorCon, formed an interdisciplinary team of engineers, doctors, nursing staff, and clinic managers to equip a total of four operating rooms and three real-world laboratories in Germany and France with 5G networks. The potential of the technology was explored and validated using four pioneering applications: AI-supported monitoring of vital signs, AI-supported analysis of surgical data, robot-assisted telesurgery, and mobile robot support in the operating room. Fraunhofer IPA’s hybrid operating room in Mannheim was not only equipped with 5G but also connected to an operating room at IHU Strasbourg. This enabled cross-border device control and teleoperation, effectively merging the two operating rooms virtually and showcasing the future of cross-border cooperation between OR teams today across national boundaries.

A smart patch continuously monitors patients’ vital signs and streams them in real time to a platform that uses AI to detect complications at an early stage, 5G enables high-frequency data processing. In the operating room, AI analyses endoscopic images, videos, and instrument data to assess the progress of the operation, identify risks, and optimize workflows. Robot-assisted telesurgery with haptic feedback enables remote interventions, with 5G ensuring high bandwidths and low latencies for real-time data exchange – an advantage when specialists are not available and to protect staff from hazardous situations. In addition, a mobile surgical robot further supports the team by precisely and reliably transporting materials and instruments, coordinated via 5G campus networks. All four applications were developed and implemented in the 5G-OR project.  The capabilities of 5G technology were utilized and taken to their full potential. With the interconnecting of operating rooms, data, devices, and applications, the future of the operating room is already accessible today thanks to modern developments by Fraunhofer IPA and its project partners.

Thanks to the successful Franco-German cooperation and outstanding research, the consortium was invited to present the results to representatives from politics, business, and research at the French Embassy in Berlin at the end of the project. In addition, experts from the consortium gave presentations on the project's research areas and discussed the OR of the future in a plenary session. At the evening event that followed, with a view onto the Brandenburg Gate and Pariser Platz, our experts were available to answer questions and engage in discussions with guests.

Telesurgery and AI have great potential to counteract the challenges posed by the current and future shortage of skilled workers in operating rooms. That is why Fraunhofer IPA is continuing its joint research with IHU Strasbourg as part of the DAIOR project to support interventions in real time using these technologies. The Franco-German cooperation is enabling the further advancement of cross-border robot-assisted telesurgery and, through the development of an AI model, compensating for delays in data communication on both sides, thus enabling even more complex procedures with more modalities. The aim of the research is to lay the foundations for performing location-independent operations using telesurgery in the future, allowing flexible use of free operating room capacities, faster procedures, and better patient-centred care.

Profile

Project name: 5G-OR – Establishing the next generation of a 5G-enabled operating room ecosystem to improve patient outcome

Project duration: 3 years from January 1, 2022

Project partners:

Germany

• Fraunhofer IPA (coordinator GER)
• Hochschule Reutlingen
• Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin
• SectorCon GmbH
• KARL STORZ SE & Co. KG

France

• IHU-Strasbourg (coordinator FR)
• b<>com Institute of Research and Technology
• RDS (Rhythm Diagnostic Systems)

Funder: Bundministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz

Project management: Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)

Budget:

• Total funds: €2,720,723.88 (project costs)
• Funding amount: €2,063,187.19 (funding)

Link: https://www.digitale-technologien.de/DT/Redaktion/DE/Pressemitteilungen/2022/intern_koop_5g_campusnetze_pm.html