Vertical: Healthcare
Application: HD-video, asset tracking, high-speed data transfer
Ecosystem: Verizon Business, Ericsson
Private Network: 5G
Mentor Hospital in Lake County, Ohio, began operating on July 11 with Cleveland Clinic’s first private 5G network, built on an Ericsson platform. The hospital aims to cater to patients with less critical needs, offering consumer-centric experiences from the exam room to the operating room, with robots in the emergency department and HD cameras in each patient room. The network enables high-speed connectivity, low latency, and enhanced cybersecurity for various patient engagement touchpoints.
Equipped as a “hospital of the future,” Mentor Hospital boasts features like information kiosks, patient room infotainment systems, and administrative functions like asset tracking. Although the current implementation is seen as a test bed, the potential for private 5G extends across the Cleveland Clinic portfolio. The network opens avenues for augmented and virtual reality applications in clinical and patient education, quick sharing of medical images, and improved hospital-at-home programs.
“Mentor Hospital is a new hospital concept, based on the needs of the community, and supports our goal of providing every patient the best care and experience possible,” said Dr. Tom Mihaljevic, Cleveland Clinic’s CEO, president, and Morton L. Mandel CEO chair.
Compared to traditional 5G networks in crowded urban areas, the 5G millimeter wave network at Mentor Hospital offers super-fast data rates and capacity, allowing for multi-gigabit data rates and low latency.
Although the current network does not serve medical and IoT devices, several manufacturers have shown interest in partnering to explore their equipment’s use over Cleveland Clinic’s private 5G network, presenting new opportunities for collaboration.
