For their 5G application that treats stroke victims quicker, Huawei and partners scoop prestigious GLOMO award from GSMA

[Barcelona, Spain, March 7, 2023] With a life-saving technology that speeds up treatment for stroke patients, China Unicom, Xuanwu Hospital, China Information Technology Designing & Consulting Institute (CITC), Bechoice, and Huawei scooped the GSMA GLOMO’s ‘Best Mobile Innovation for the Connected Health and Wellbeing’ award during World Mobile Congress in Barcelona.

With fast aging population and accelerating urbanization, stroke is becoming a major public health problem worldwide. Strokes too often result in disability, death, and have the propensity to re-occur. After stroke onset, many patients urgently require intravenous thrombolysis and revascularization to recover. However, it may be too late by the time the patient reaches the hospital.

5G enables a new treatment model for stroke victims. Xuanwu Hospital’s National Engineering Research Center for Telemedicine and Telehealth (NERCTT) partnered with China Unicom to build the ‘5G Mobile Stroke Unit — Maintaining Brain Health’ project, China’s first comprehensive 5G mobile stroke treatment platform.

The stroke treatment platform uses technologies such as 5G slicing, ultra-long-distance coverage, and Multi-access Edge Computing to upload patients’ CT images, vital sign data, and monitoring videos to the hospital for telemedicine guidance over China Unicom’s seamless 5G networks. As a result, CT scanning, laboratory tests, diagnosis, and intravenous thrombolysis can all be completed in the 5G Mobile Stroke Unit, and the time between receiving the patient and applying thrombolytic therapy is shortened significantly to around 17 to 28 minutes. This is far quicker than the conventional procedure that involves both pre-hospital first aid and in-hospital emergency treatment. This project has already been widely implemented across 16 provinces in China, benefiting nearly 120 million people.

One GSMA judge spoke highly of the technology: “This employed leading edge technologies in direct support of a highly compelling, globally applicable use case — helping resolve a specific medical issue at the point of need. Multiple technical challenges had to be overcome, and it is hoped that the learnings will translate to broader use cases, across healthcare and beyond.”

The GSMA GLOMO awards were established in 1995 and have been held annually for 27 years. They are known as the “Oscars” of the communications industry, especially in the 5G, IoT, and digitalization fields. Every year, hundreds of leading operators, system equipment vendors, terminal vendors, and service application teams from around the world participate, vying for prestigious awards and the industry’s recognition of their projects. Huawei will continue to work with China Unicom, Xuanwu Hospital, and other partners to explore 5G smart healthcare and safeguard people’s lives and health.

‘5G Mobile Stroke Unit — Maintaining Brain Health’ project wins GSMA’s ‘Best Mobile Innovation for the Connected Health and Wellbeing’ award