5G NR in Healthcare: A Scoping Review

Background. The effectiveness of the application of various technologies in medicine has increased after learning how to use 5G networks. This technology has shown tremendous potential to increase the speed and accuracy of data that can help save and cure more people. Purpose. This scoping review aims to explore how 5G is being used in medicine and healthcare. The review described various 5G applications for different areas of medicine and presented various applications, including specific ones and tried to answer questions related to 5G applications, their potential, determine unresolved issues and how this technology had affected the fight against COVID-19. Materials and methods. This review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA-ScR recommendations for the search and selection of studies. The search was conducted on the popular scientific database Scopus. Results. 77 studies from 121 search results were included in this review. The most common use of 5G in healthcare was cooperation with IoT technology. 5G was also used in fighting against COVID-19 and contact tracing. The included studies demonstrated that 5G can be used to speed up data transfer, as well as to increase their accuracy. Conclusion. The study showed that 5G has a variety of applications in healthcare in close cooperation with IoT devices. Due to the fact that modern medicine is moving to the use of various devices to monitor and maintain the health of patients, increased data transfer rates are required.