The HOLA 5G Oulu project intro­duces Europe’s first pri­vate 5G net­work in health­care

Bol­dyn Net­works, WICOAR Tech­nolo­gies, Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu have received the offi­cial fund­ing deci­sion from the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion in the CEF Dig­i­tal¹ pro­gram for the Hola 5G Oulu project. Work­ing togeth­er as a con­sor­tium, the four par­ties will col­lab­o­rate to bring a pri­vate 5G net­work to Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal and enable wire­less wear­able solu­tions for more effi­cient patient care.

The Hola 5G Oulu project was ini­ti­at­ed by Jani Katisko, Asso­ciate pro­fes­sor and Med­ical Physi­cist at Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal, and Petri Parvi­ainen, Head of sales at Bol­dyn Net­works, to trans­form health­care with Europe’s first-ever pri­vate 5G SA net­work in a func­tion­ing hos­pi­tal. This ground­break­ing project will lever­age wire­less wear­able tech­nol­o­gy to rede­fine patient care and empow­er med­ical pro­fes­sion­als. Hola 5G Oulu is about cre­at­ing a robust and secure net­work for high­ly demand­ing health­care envi­ron­ments and relat­ed use cas­es. Start­ing with one entire floor of the patient ward and select­ed oper­at­ing the­atres that serve as a plat­form for research and devel­op­ment, fur­ther­ing the role of Oulu as a cen­tre of tech­no­log­i­cal and med­ical inno­va­tion.

The con­sor­tium will research and devel­op advanced data shar­ing and visu­al­i­sa­tion tech­niques aim­ing to define effi­cient patient care. 

Bol­dyn’s secure, high-capac­i­ty pri­vate 5G net­work will pro­vide the essen­tial infra­struc­ture for this trans­for­ma­tion. Thanks to Pohde, the project will be ini­ti­at­ed in Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal, the north­ern­most of Fin­land’s five uni­ver­si­ty hos­pi­tals. It will enable seam­less, real-time data shar­ing, remote mon­i­tor­ing capa­bil­i­ties, and the inte­gra­tion of cut­ting-edge med­ical tech­nolo­gies, ensur­ing opti­mal patient care and oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy.

Petri Parvi­ainen, Senior Key Account Man­ag­er at Bol­dyn Net­works said: “We’re bring­ing our exper­tise in large, con­nect­ed venues as well as bespoke pri­vate net­works to deliv­er a solu­tion that will undoubt­ed­ly be repli­cat­ed in oth­er hos­pi­tals in Fin­land and glob­al­ly. Our con­sor­tium part­ner­ships exem­pli­fy a con­cert­ed effort towards cre­at­ing a health­care sys­tem that is future-proof to com­ply with the fast-paced soci­etal changes and tech­no­log­i­cal evo­lu­tion.”

“A pri­vate 5G net­work, with its high capac­i­ty and high-secu­ri­ty nature, will pro­vide the hos­pi­tal with a reli­able net­work, that can enable inno­v­a­tive health­care-sup­port­ing solu­tions and solid­ly main­tain its per­for­mance, even in the dis­tur­bance of a black­out,” added Petri.

Oulu-based com­pa­ny WICOAR’s inno­v­a­tive wear­able solu­tions will put live patient data direct­ly into the hands of doc­tors and nurs­es, facil­i­tat­ing faster diag­noses and more per­son­al­ized treat­ment plans. These wear­ables will stream­line work­flows, reduce admin­is­tra­tive bur­dens, and allow health­care pro­fes­sion­als to focus on what mat­ters most: their patients.

Rauno Joke­lainen, a mem­ber of the WICOAR board said: “WICOAR Tech­nolo­gies is a pio­neer­ing Finnish start­up dri­ven by the desire to eas­i­ly inte­grate patient data into dai­ly patient care safe­ly and quick­ly. The new tech­nol­o­gy reduces the time spent on patient work while increas­ing the face-to-face con­tact with the patient by reduc­ing the work involv­ing col­lect­ing patient data on a ter­mi­nal in the office.” 

Imag­ine a world where:

• Doc­tors instant­ly access live patient data and med­ical imag­ing dur­ing con­sul­ta­tions.
• Sur­geons visu­al­ize patient his­to­ries effort­less­ly dur­ing pro­ce­dures.
• Anaes­thetists remote­ly mon­i­tor surg­eries, pro­vid­ing expert guid­ance from any loca­tion.

This isn’t a dis­tant dream; it’s the future of health­care, and it’s hap­pen­ing now. This EU-fund­ed ini­tia­tive, set to rev­o­lu­tion­ize Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal, will enable:

• Effi­cient Patient Care: Stream­lin­ing work­flows for health­care pro­fes­sion­als, reduc­ing admin­is­tra­tive bur­dens, and increas­ing face-to-face time with patients.
• Inno­v­a­tive Wear­able Solu­tions: Live patient data at doc­tors’ fin­ger­tips, improv­ing diag­noses and treat­ment plans.
• Enhanced Sur­gi­cal Pre­ci­sion: Remote mon­i­tor­ing and real-time data shar­ing for safer and more effec­tive pro­ce­dures.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu has a cru­cial role in this trans­for­ma­tive project by work­ing hand-in-hand with doc­tors and nurs­es. The focus is on ensur­ing the smooth inte­gra­tion of these cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies into the hos­pi­tal’s dai­ly oper­a­tions, min­i­miz­ing dis­rup­tion to exist­ing work­flows. Through rig­or­ous test­ing and user-cen­tric design, it is com­mit­ted to empow­er­ing health­care pro­fes­sion­als to embrace these inno­va­tions seam­less­ly and deliv­er even bet­ter patient care.

This EU-fund­ed ini­tia­tive marks a sig­nif­i­cant leap for­ward in Euro­pean health­care. By estab­lish­ing the first pri­vate 5G net­work with­in a func­tion­ing hos­pi­tal, the project lays the ground­work for secure, effi­cient patient care through inno­v­a­tive wear­able tech­nolo­gies. This will ulti­mate­ly lead to improved patient care and a more effi­cient work­flow for health­care pro­fes­sion­als.

Stay tuned for upcom­ing infor­ma­tion on the excit­ing progress of Hola 5G Oulu and the future of health­care inno­va­tion.

Con­tact per­sons

Petri Parvi­ainen

Head of Sales Pub­lic Sec­tor, Pri­vate Net­works Europe, Bol­dyn Net­works

petri.parviainen@boldyn.com

Rauno Joke­lainen

Co-founder of WICOAR Tech­nolo­gies Oy

Rauno.jokelainen@wicoar.com

Source: WICOAR / the con­sor­tium