The pandemic has accelerated the development of connected health models, and digital transformation is bringing the smart hospital closer to reality. All it needs, says Huawei senior business development manager for Western Europe Simone Pretti, is the right infrastructure.

HITN: Tell us a little about your vision of the smart hospital and what it means for the next generation of patient care.

Pretti: If I have to explain it broadly, the smart hospital means having an infrastructure that can offer a lot of services. It’s a connected hospital, not only internally but externally. To be able to do this, we need infrastructure – network connectivity and IT - because we need to share information, patient data, images, examinations, internally and with other hospitals.

HITN: That’s a very exciting vision for the future. How close is the infrastructure to enable it?

Pretti: Not so far, to be honest. We have the possibility to do it at least inside the hospital, but also moving forward to interconnected hospitals, because the technology is really ready for that. Our future is to be interconnected.

HITN: How do you think these new infrastructures will influence more effective use of data to manage individual and public health?

Pretti: It’s a nice question and very important, because the technology can really help to change things. Look, for example, at a patient who has a neurological disease like MS. Thanks to AI and access to a database, we can give the doctor an accurate analysis and information about whether the treatment they are going to do is right or needs to change because the disease has progressed more quickly.

If we look at the big picture, where there is a particular disease in a certain area, with all the public organisations connected, using big data we can immediately check what’s going on – and forecast – like with COVID-19, what will happen.

From an infrastructure point of view, all of these data sources must be inter-connected. We can use private cloud or private data centres – it’s still an opportunity. Or we can use big data in the public cloud but of course we need to pay attention to patient information privacy and the GDPR.

HITN: This will all be happening behind the scenes – but what will the consequences be for the patient experience? From what you are saying, things will be very different in the future.

Pretti: The goal is for the patient to receive fast analysis, shared information – for example, on your tablet or mobile. Then there is virtual care, remote consultations and diagnosis where appropriate. And doctors should be able to have your complete medical history so they know how to treat you, which means sharing information.

There are other cases – the possibility of a drone that brings medicines to remote areas which an ambulance can’t reach. To do that you need the big overlapping of the 5G network. The same goes for augmented reality or remote surgery. It really can help the patient, but to be able to do it, you always need infrastructure. It’s not impossible today. Just do it!

HITN: That’s a strong call to action. But how quickly is this infrastructure likely to happen, in your opinion?

Pretti: If I close my eyes, what I can see three years from now is that we will probably have started a lot of this digital transformation and be moving to the cloud, or to private datacentres, managing centralised information, on a new journey of changing the digital networks inside hospitals. It isn’t just about projects though. Everyone in healthcare, including the patient, should be able to see that we are thinking about them. We are moving forward to do it with them in mind.

Healthcare IT News spoke to Huawei senior business development manager for Western Europe Simone Pretti as part of the 'Summer Conversations' series.