# How 5G Wireless (and Concomitant Technologies) Will Revolutionize Healthcare?
## 1 Introduction  
Good health has a constructive effect on all aspects of human life and social well-being including personal happiness, workforce productivity and economic growth. Recognizing the importance of healthcare, facilitating affordable universal access to healthcare is already enshrined as an important goal of the United Nations' new Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This defines the UN's development agenda for the next 15 years. In the words of the Nobel Laureate [PERSON], \"Health is a critically significant constituent of human capabilities which we have reason to value\". It has been shown in the literature that investment in healthcare pays huge dividends. In the Economists' Declaration, originally launched in 2015 with 267 high-profile economist signatories, world-leading economists called on global policy-makers to plead for a pro-poor pathway to universal health coverage as an essential pillar of sustainable development [1]. A case was made that healthcare investments make perfect economic sense since according to the Global Health 2035 report by the Lancet Commissionon Investing in Health, every dollar invested in the healthcare of poor countries has a nine-fold or higher return. Despite the core role of human health in human development and progress, today's healthcare system is largely dysfunctional and in the need of a major overhaul. Broadly speaking, the ills of the healthcare system can be categorized into four major deficiencies, which we discuss next. _Firstly,_ the current healthcare system is _not convenient for patients since it is not patient-centric_. As an example, the patient has to go, or be taken, to a doctor's office or a hospital for any non-trivial illness, which is inconvenient for the patient (who would likely prefer to rest). This is equitably unsuitable for the patient's caregivers (e.g., the patient's guardian or family member) who must take the patient to the clinic. Further, the patients also need to slot their health-related appointments into their busy schedule. Sometimes, this leads to carelessness in giving due attention to regular and required health-checks with doctors. _Secondly,_ the current healthcare system is _not personalized_ according to the individual patient. Doctors prescribe medications based on population averages rather than the individual characteristics. As of today, it is very difficult and costly to adopt tailored treatments based on individuals' medical history and genetic profile. _Thirdly,_ the current healthcare system is _not equitably accessible_. Similar kinds of healthcare facilities are not equally accessible to patients. These facilities are utilized by only a certain groups of people, based on their ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographic residence, etc. Similarly, lack or limited access to basic healthcare services is putting patients (especially disabled people) at much higher risk and causing adverse health outcomes. _Fourthly,_ the current healthcare system is _not holistic/data-driven_. The Institute of Medicine, a division of the National Academy of Sciences, representing our most prestigious scientists and physicians, published the report _\"To Err Is Human\"_, which proclaimed that \"at least 44,000 people, and perhaps as many as 98,000 people, die in hospitals each year as a result of medical errors that could have been prevented\", but which arose because \"faulty systems, processes, and condition\" led people either to make mistakes or to fail to prevent them. Beyond the human toll, these errors cost between $17 billion and $29 billion. Although modern medicine is ripe with numerous success stories (such as the eradication of diseases such as smallpox, the invention of antibiotics and anaesthesia, the development of modern surgery and therapy techniques), the overall healthcare industry has been largely impervious to a technological revolution. This has been the case due to many reasons such as its highly regulated and policy-driven nature, as well as the unique nature of its value chain unlike other markets.