Category: Ideation

HH Angus is honoured to once again be named one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies for 2020. This is our second consecutive year being selected for this prestigious honour, and we want to thank our clients and employees for the important part they played in helping us achieve this national recognition. The award, now in its 27th year, distinguishes overall business performance and growth of best-in-class, Canadian-owned companies with revenues of $15 million or more.

Paul Keenan, President of HH Angus

“We are grateful for this acknowledgement of our firm’s forward-looking strategy, as well as the engagement of our employees and their ongoing commitment to technical excellence and innovation,” said Paul Keenan, President of HH Angus. “We were thrilled to be selected for this award in our first submission last year. Being recognized again this year is a testament to the ongoing commitment of our employees, and the confidence of our clients, who place their trust in us year over year. Our expansion to Vancouver underscores our growth strategy, with the opening of a permanent office to support our local and national clients in BC. And as a knowledge-based firm, we are investing in continuous learning for our staff, and in the emerging design and collaboration technologies that will allow us to deliver on our clients’ goals for their built environment.”

Tom Halpenny, General Manager and VP Operations

According to Tom Halpenny, General Manager and VP Operations: “Having just celebrated our 100th anniversary, being recognized as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies for a second year speaks to the stability of HH Angus, to the strength of our business strategy, and the enduring relationships we have developed with clients over the years.  Those relationships are built largely on the collaborative approach and technical expertise of our staff. This is a team win, and we all share in this award.”

About Canada’s Best Managed Companies

Canada’s Best Managed Companies continues to be the mark of excellence for Canadian-owned and managed companies with revenues over 5 million. Every year since the launch of the program in 1993, hundreds of entrepreneurial companies have competed for this designation in a rigorous and independent process that evaluates their management skills and practices. The awards are granted on four levels:

  1. Canada’s Best Managed Companies new winner (one of the new winners selected each year);
  2. Canada’s Best Managed Companies winner (award recipients that have re-applied and successfully retained their Best Managed designation for two additional years, subject to annual operational and financial review);
  3. Gold Standard winner (after three consecutive years of maintaining their Best Managed status, these winners have demonstrated their commitment to the program and successfully retained their award for 4-6 consecutive years);
  4. Platinum Club member (winners that have maintained their Best Managed status for seven years or more).

Program sponsors are Deloitte Private, CIBC, Canadian Business, Smith School of Business, and TMX Group. For more information, visit:

Deloitte Canada's Best Managed Companies 2020

 

HH Angus Contact:
Sameer Dhargalkar | Vice President, Marketing and Business Development
HH Angus and Associates Ltd.
+l (416) 443 8200
Sameer.dhargalkar@hhangus.com
hhangus.com

In the hospital of the near future, technology plays a key part in streamlining and enhancing the patient’s experience and delivering high quality care: from wireless physiological monitors to virtual reality entertainment to patients’ health information at their fingertips.

Robots roam the hospital—delivering medication, transporting patients and cleaning. Artificial intelligence (AI), predictive analytics and natural language processing automatically transcribe symptoms and diagnose ailments with a high degree of accuracy, while machine learning algorithms constantly improve the system’s ability to detect and treat medical conditions. Human healthcare providers have been all but eliminated from the equation. It’s the perfect healthcare system – or is it?”

“Medicine is both an art and a science. In order to best serve patients, technology needs to support care providers in doing the things that machines cannot do.”

Depending on who you talk to, this is either a futuristic dream or a technological nightmare.  While it is true that our healthcare system could benefit greatly from many of the technologies mentioned above, there is one key element missing: the art of human compassion and caring that is necessary for a truly patient-centric approach to healthcare. Medicine is both an art and a science. In order to best serve patients, technology needs to support care providers in doing the things that machines cannot do. The art of medicine is not just about finding a diagnosis or treating an ailment based on a universally prescribed regimen; it extends into the social realm where human touch, advocacy and empathy are arguably equally important. Medicine is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Cultural norms, family dynamics, genetics, belief systems, and previous experiences all play an important role in patient decision-making. The way in which a provider navigates through these aspects of care greatly influences patients’ autonomy and quality of life. As yet, there is no way to duplicate the complexity of these influences in a machine. There is no such thing as digital compassion.

This isn’t to say that AI doesn’t have tremendous potential to radically transform healthcare for the better. There is no doubt that more accurate diagnoses, fewer medical errors, streamlined documentation, and more nuanced interpretation of large data sets could benefit patients, providers and society as a whole. But maintaining human connection and empathy in a high-tech healthcare system requires careful consideration of how AI and other technologies are implemented – and how they may impact the patient-provider relationship.

Here are several ways AI can support a patient-centered care environment, today and in the future.

Clinical Decision Support

A key way AI can enhance a patient-centered environment is through supporting clinicians rather than replacing them. A great example of this is in providing clinical decision support, highlighting areas of interest or suggesting potential diagnoses or treatment options based on a data set far larger than any human could grasp. While machines are adept at processing large amounts of data, there are many factors that humans are able to account for that machines simply can’t comprehend; on the other hand, humans are barely able to process even a fraction of the data machines can – making a combination of human and machine intelligence the most accurate diagnostic approach. Working together, humans and machines can provide faster and more accurate treatment of conditions to not only address medical issues before they become serious, but also to optimize patients’ health and wellbeing.

Personalized Care

Personalized medicine has been a buzzword since the human genome was first sequenced in 2002 but, unfortunately, reality has not lived up to the hype – yet. Artificial intelligence has the ability to simultaneously analyze far more data points than a human can, and to provide statistical models for potential diagnoses given a particular patient’s unique set of data. There are a number of AI-powered apps on the market which combine AI with medical expertise to interpret a patient’s answers to various questions and respond with a recommended course of action. In some communities where access to high-quality care is limited, this technology is filling the gap and making significant improvements to population health. As an example, Rwanda has a staggering 10,000 residents per doctor, making access to care difficult and expensive; but the introduction of an AI app called Babylon has drastically altered the healthcare landscape. Nearly a third of the population has used the app to access health care advice, dramatically enhancing access to care where providers may not otherwise be available or accessible.

While human involvement in diagnosis and treatment is still critical – all too often AI systems still identify false positives – applications like Babylon can improve the quality of information available to patients, support patient engagement and, ultimately, relieve some of the pressure on overextended healthcare systems around the world.

Patient Data and Privacy

One of the ways AI and machine learning algorithms are trained is to present the system with a large amount of data from which to learn. Unfortunately, this approach is hampered by two challenges particular to healthcare:

  1. there is a lot of data but most of it is not high quality, and
  2. most data is not available to researchers because of strict (and necessary) patient privacy regulations.

These limited data sets have a real impact on the effectiveness of AIs: lack of diversity can lead to incorrect assumptions or bias across different populations, a problem that facial recognition and speech recognition algorithms have already struggled with and been publicly criticized for.

University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto has taken a unique approach to solving the patient privacy problem, by creating a patient-controlled system where blockchain is used to control and track who has access to personal health data. The system also allows patients to grant and revoke access to researchers, enhancing transparency and engagement.  Other AIs are using natural language processing to read increasingly more complex and messy data sets, improving the quality of data which can then be used to train smarter and more accurate medical AIs.

“Explainable” AI Enhances Trust

Clinicians are trained to analyze data to make connections between different symptoms and draw conclusions about diagnoses and patient health, and may often do so unconsciously. But what happens when an AI simply spits out a percentage of risk? Without context, this information may not be useful to a human doctor interpreting the results, and limits the extent to which the data can be used. This problem has led to the development of a new field of “explainable” AI. These systems not only draw conclusions from diverse sets of data, but can also explain the links between different risk factors and outcomes based on evidence – allowing clinicians better insight into the connections between seemingly unrelated data.

Transparency also builds trust in what may otherwise appear to be a vague and arbitrary output. While trust may seem like a superficial benefit, the transparency and explainability of AIs has real-world impact when it comes to reducing bias and errors in the medical system. From an ethical perspective, it is also important to understand how machines draw their conclusions so that we can ensure they are doing so appropriately.

The Doctor is…Automated?

Automation is a nuanced conversation in any industry, no less so in healthcare where organizations are under increasing pressure to treat aging populations with fewer resources. By now it should be clear that automation can never completely replace humans in providing compassionate care, but that doesn’t mean it has no place in the healthcare industry. Studies have shown that both nurses and doctors spend a significant amount of time on tasks unrelated to patient care, such as documentation, billing, reporting and insurance; not only that, but organizations spend tremendous time and resources ensuring compliance with regulatory and accreditation requirements. In the future, many of these repetitive tasks may be automated, leaving clinicians to focus their attention on what machines can’t do: providing compassionate care to their patients.

Implementing Artificial Intelligence in a Patient-Centric Environment

Today’s AI pales in comparison to what we anticipate it will be capable of in the future – the possibilities are both endless and exciting. We are on the cusp of a radical transformation in healthcare, but it is one that needs to be approached with care and consideration to ensure we don’t end up in a technological dystopia where compassion has been traded for clinical efficiency. There is still a tremendous need for human healthcare professionals to provide care to patients, with or without the assistance of medical AIs; in fact, it is very likely that the rise of AI will make skills like empathy and caring even more valued than they are today.

This vision relies upon bringing together people and technology to create a world where clinicians and patients alike benefit from technologies which augment human cognition, automate non-value-added tasks, and help us better understand ourselves. In the end, perhaps that’s what digital compassion is: allowing technology to support the human connection in a way that blends the art with the science, creating a truly patient-centered care environment.

Author: 

Kim Osborne Rodriguez,P.Eng., RCDD
kim.osbornerodriguez@hhangus.com

Sending you our very best wishes for a healthy and happy holiday season!

From your friends at HH Angus

This year we turned our card into a delightful set of DIY desk decorations with special holiday messages.

Some assembly required.
(Because we’re engineers and you know how much we like that!)

Click here to download DIY desk decorations

As another year draws to a close, we particularly want to thank you – our clients, project partners and industry friends – for your role in helping HH Angus achieve the milestone of 100 years in business, which we celebrated this year. We’re grateful for the opportunity to build long-standing relationships and to deliver the kind of dedicated client service that builds trust and respect.  

Over this holiday season, we wish you and yours the very best, and look forward to another great year ahead as we begin our second century – Happy Holidays! 

Guest Speakers:  Michael Hyatt | Dr. Rueben Devlin | Andrew Day

 

Across the board disruption, led by the rapid advance of technology, is changing everything about the delivery of healthcare, from how we think about healthcare, and how we plan tools and strategies for the future and implement these, to what hospitals, primary care, and long term care facilities are going to look like and how they will function in the coming decades.

On October 29th, HH Angus invited leaders from Ontario’s healthcare sector, as well as the financial, real estate, architecture, engineering and construction industries who focus on healthcare, to join us for our Ideation: Healthcare Reimagined. The conference explored how delivery of care will evolve and benefit from the digital transformation disrupting nearly every industry today.

We’re sharing a few of the many fascinating insights from this event to help frame the degree of disruption ahead and the change that will be necessary to successfully deliver better healthcare.  We’d like to thank our speakers for their insights into the impact of technology disruption, the evolution of change in the healthcare industry, and for allowing us to share highlights from their presentations.

Technology Disruption

Michael Hyatt is one of Canada’s top entrepreneurs, and a Founding Partner and Fellow at the Rotman School of Management’s Creative Destruction Lab. He examined the larger view of how disruption is both prevalent and good, and how we must embrace it to create positive change.

Michael shone a spotlight on the sheer unlikeliness of most disruptive changes, which explains the tendency of human beings to not see these big changes coming. Disruption isn’t new; it has been changing the nature of work since the Industrial Revolution, leading to better and more productive work than ever. The explosion of computing power is increasing predictive capacity, with far-reaching consequences and untold benefits. Knowledge is compounding exponentially and the growth in machine learning will bring myriad new opportunities and make obsolete low value, repetitive work. Which is good, Michael said, because studies show that autonomy and a sense of purpose mean more to employees than money when it comes to job satisfaction. Sponsoring creativity, invention and random thinking days in your organization will bring unexpected positive results. Despite the public spotlight on technology, innovation is still about people, and leaders need to focus on keeping staff engaged if they want their organizations to innovate. 

The Future of Healthcare in Ontario

Dr. Rueben Devlin is an orthopedic surgeon and an experienced health care executive with demonstrated success working in hospitals and the health care industry. The former CEO of Humber River Regional Hospital, North America’s first fully digital hospital, Dr. Devlin is currently Special Advisor and Chair of the Premier’s Council on Improving Healthcare and Ending Hallway Medicine in Ontario, and is well positioned to influence the future of health care delivery in Ontario.

Dr. Devlin highlighted the need to take action with a long-term view in mind, in order to significantly improve health outcomes—to plan for services and the facilities that will be needed ten to fifteen years from now, not just next year.  The Council’s second report identified a roadmap for the future of healthcare delivery, outlined under four headings:  integration, innovation, efficiency/alignments, and capacity. Enabling all of these are digital supports, the tools that replace processes and tools now at the end of their useful life, such as outdated fax technology. Digital supports enable improvements in service delivery and make interactions with the health care system more effective for patients and providers.

Integration

Patient-centric health care systems allow medical staff to connect easily with patients and to share information safely and securely among the health care team to the benefit of each patient. He noted that we need to improve patients’ ability to navigate the health care system, ensuring primary care is the foundation of an integrated health care system. We need to connect multiple health care providers to ensure better integration and a simpler, smoother patient/caregiver experience.

Innovation

Improved options for health care delivery include increasing the availability and use of virtual care options, both synchronously and asynchronously. The latter allows patient/practitioner to interface at times that are convenient for both. Patients and providers should be able to use technology to access health services in the most efficient way possible. For example, Ontario has the opportunity to modernize home care, and provide better alternatives in the community for patients who require a flexible mix of health care and other supports.

Efficiency and Alignment

Improvements happen by doing things differently. Data should be strategically designed, open and transparent, and actively used throughout the healthcare system to drive greater accountability and to improve healthcare outcomes. Two examples are:

  1. Ensure Ontarians receive coordinated support by strengthening partnerships between health and social services, which are known to impact the social determinants of health.

     

  2. As the healthcare system transforms, design financial incentives to promote improved health care outcomes for communities and increase value for taxpayers.

Capacity

This includes bricks and mortar, human resources and collaborative inter-professional leadership. We need strong leadership throughout the system—we can’t just simply be caretakers of the current system, because if you are caretakers of the system, you continue to get what you’ve already got.

What could be achieved if we made bold changes?

  • Imagine a health care system where patients can conveniently and securely access their own personal health care information and make healthy choices by accessing preventive services in the community after talking with their primary care provider.

     

  • Imagine a system where providers are working in a team environment and have access to a full continuum of care for their patients, in addition to digital tools and professional development support and resources.

Moving Forward

Dr. Devlin describes one of his main tasks as the identification of barriers in order to make the system work more effectively.

“What are we going to look for? More virtual options for patients and providers. Data used as a management tool—how do we exchange it, how do we share it across the province, and how do we start using it for predictive analytics so it works for us?  We need to think about coordinated treatment plans, designed and delivered by integrated and inter-professional teams as well as upstream interventions, how to modernize our funding system and use Predictive intelligence and predictive analytics. When data is used strategically, information becomes relevant for decision making and we will be better positioned to connect patients to the right care at the right time.”

The Health System of the Future 

Andrew Day is a Principal with GE Healthcare Partners where he leads their global analytic consulting team and the design of GE’s real-time data analytics for hospital command centres. He has extensive experience in the US, Canada, UK, Asia and Australia, working with clients to focus on the future of healthcare facility design to improve operational efficiencies and deliver better health outcomes.

Andy explored the trend he is seeing towards localized community care.  Overwhelmed tertiary and large urban healthcare facilities can’t grow beds or services quickly enough to meet demand—budgets simply do not allow for this. Instead, they are partnering and trying to leverage other care settings (community care and outpatient strategies) as a matter of necessity, not as a matter of convenience. The focus is on how the acute care facilities and the community can work together to solve for the system-wide solution.

Digital Twinning

For new hospital development, digital twinning and simulation models provide the ability to test how systems and spaces will work together prior to construction. It’s vital to redesign the care delivery system itself—it’s not enough to simply digitize the status quo; the actual process of delivering care in the new setting has to change.  By changing the workflow, changing the dynamics and leveraging automation, delivery of care can be done better.

Command Centres

Command centres across a range of industries have common elements. The first is individual operators, individual experts from different functions, co-located, with their own transactional and operational systems in front of them. They also have a wall of analytics providing shared visibility to what’s going on across the system which alerts them to situations they need to act on. Key is that these alerts need to be in near real time and they need to be very specific. The best ones are about a specific patient that needs a specific action right now – or better yet, to forecast that it will be needed before it happens.

In designing a command centre, Andy recommends starting with the problem that needs to be solved, design the action, design the trigger for that action, and then make sure the right people are in the room and empowered with the right culture and the right tools to deliver care more effectively and at a higher utilization rate.

The analytics, or tiles, available in the command centre are also available on tablets as staff move around the hospital, and available on any terminal for staff to log in.

What’s Next for Command Centres?

Andy is looking ahead to broader adoption of command centres to ensure better integration between healthcare units.  Optimizing and connecting care across healthcare systems beyond single campuses. Leveraging AI/Machine Learning (ML) to forecast discharge date, likelihood of re-admission, etc. Guided ML being applied to limited but reliable variables is what is needed for using ML in real time. ML, neural networks, and simulation in the loop are useful forecasting tools and the basic building blocks of true AI, and they are already starting to quietly be applied in healthcare.

Key Take-aways From the Event

The pace of change is phenomenal. Humans initially tend to be afraid of change but time and again history has proven that change has improved our lives dramatically. We’re only seeing the opening act of what technologies like artificial intelligence will do. In healthcare, artificial intelligence will impact the role of health professionals and how they do their jobs, as well as the design of and access to healthcare facilities.

Currently, the hospital is seen as the epicenter for receiving healthcare. However, as demographics and technology changes, we will see a decentralization of healthcare. Healthcare will likely be distributed close to where it is needed – from clinics to homecare to even your phone. Hospitals will continue to be important, but their role will evolve to one more of facilitating and optimizing the system, as opposed to just focusing on the acute care piece of it.

Technology will be critical to the transformation of healthcare. The ability for patients to have access to their electronic health records and to easily transport this to the healthcare provider of their choice will significantly reduce friction in the system and lead to better care. As healthcare becomes decentralized, command centres will play a key role in integrating the various players.

The importance of change management cannot be overlooked. The transformation of healthcare will involve dramatic changes. Governments, healthcare professionals, patients and other stakeholders" need to be informed to the opportunities and buy into a collective vision for the future.

What Will Be the Role of Engineers?

Reflecting on the above highlights, Harry Angus (HH Angus’ CEO) foresees the use of current and foreseeable technology changing the face and means of healthcare delivery in profound ways and, if properly constructed, enabling far better knowledge and control for all patients.

Nice in theory but, practically, how can current leaders of healthcare effect the changes necessary at this point? Although the following is by no means comprehensive, here are some thoughts.

The formation of Ontario Health teams will mean that all health providers within a defined geographic district will need to agree how health care should be managed going forward, which institution or provider is to provide what service, how they will cooperate in creating comprehensive electronic health records and intra-communications systems, and who will assume the role of primary responsibility across a continuum of care.

To fund the changes necessary to address the above points, it will be necessary to create efficiencies out of a district’s cumulative budget, a goal made more difficult in light of the aging demographics of many areas and the fact that the many healthcare providers in the geographic region currently have their own priorities, management structures, and methodologies. It will be a huge change management task and a testament for the leaders who successfully take it on.

There are many areas for consideration; following are our thoughts in areas where we as engineers might be of assistance.

  1. Assessment of facilities located within a geographic region and evaluation of which are up to the task going forward; e.g., would it help to have sole practitioners be co-located, to move non-intensive activities to a different level of facility, or close down some facilities due to age/condition, operating costs, or inability to support on going medical procedures?

     

  2. As the combined vision of healthcare delivery is developed with the team, recommending strategies for how team members will share information, across which systems and infrastructure.

     

  3. Engage with healthcare facilities at the outset of strategic visioning to determine how hospital operations will be reimagined/modified to take advantage of current best practices.

     

  4. Understand how team members will take advantage of alternative technologies and delivery systems, such as virtual care and augmented reality; e.g., how a paramedic might quickly access enhanced medical expertise necessary to a patient.

     

  5. Consider and make recommendations on how remote monitoring may be utilized in proactive and beneficial ways.

The next ten years will witness rapid change in healthcare delivery, due in part to the advancement of technology. The scope and speed of change will be disconcerting to many, but welcome news to every patient who will have the opportunity to access their own comprehensive medical records, much as other industries have already converted their systems.

By proposing a model of healthcare delivery based on geography and a co-ordinated full continuum of care for every individual in that region, the province has served notice that the status quo will disappear. What the new model will look like, and how it will function, will likely vary between regions due to local needs. Technology will be the enabler to move the necessary changes forward.

A game-changer in the wireless communications industry, 5G represents the fifth generation of cellular connectivity and a significant leap forward in performance compared to 4G and LTE. However, in order to plan for its impact in industries such as healthcare, smart cities and commercial buildings, we have to understand its opportunities, limitations and design challenges.

 What is 5G?

First, it’s important to differentiate 5G from other wireless communication protocols such as Wi-Fi.

5G (along with previous standards like 3G, 4G and LTE) is a standard for wireless cellular communications, and uses licensed frequency bands which must be purchased by the carrier. Wi-Fi, on the other hand, refers to technologies commonly used for wireless local area networking – connecting users to a building or residential network which is often owned and operated by the building owner. Wi-Fi uses unlicensed frequency bands which are available for anyone to use, and which can result in an increased risk of signal interference. The new 5G standard augments existing Wi-Fi and LTE standards rather than replacing them – in fact, Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) is set to also dramatically change the performance of Wi-Fi communications.

With that in mind, let’s look at how 5G differs from previous generations of cellular technology:

  • Latency, or the amount of time it takes for information to travel from the sender to the receiver is reduced to a theoretical <1 millisecond end-to-end, which is on par with many wired networks. As a comparison, typical home Wi-Fi latency is 2-5 milliseconds, and cable/DSL connections can have latency up to 100 milliseconds. Reduced latency increases the responsiveness for applications like self-driving cars, and can help data speeds appear higher to the end user.
  • 5G supports a higher density of users (up to 1 million per square kilometre or 100 times the density of previous generations). This is a limitation of many existing networks and key to supporting the expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the myriad connected devices carried by people all over the world.
  • Transmission speed, or the amount of data that can be sent in a given period of time, is increased from a maximum of 1Gbps with LTE to a theoretical limit of 10-100Gpbs with 5G. It is anticipated that actual speeds will be an estimated 200Mbps-1Gbps in the field, which is still significantly higher than what most users experience with LTE.
  • Ultra-high reliability of 99.999%, which translates into downtime of less than 5 minutes and 15 seconds per year, and meets the typical standard for mission-critical data centres and networks.
  • Reduced power consumption, which is key for extending the life of battery-powered field devices and IoT.

Although most users won’t notice the difference, 5G also uses different radio frequencies from past standards. Current cellular protocols typically operate on radio frequencies between 1900MHz and 2700MHz; however, 5G uses two distinctly different frequency bands: below 6GHz, which supports standard cellular connectivity (600-700MHz and 3.5GHz in Canada), and above 6GHz, which is focused on point-to-point data transfer (millimetre wave or 28-35GHz) and can only be used for line-of-sight applications. This change has implications for existing infrastructure, as radio frequency communications are highly dependent on the hardware that supports them.

When is it coming?

Frequency auctions are already happening across North America and Europe. Canadian 600MHz frequencies were auctioned off in early 2019, and higher frequencies, including 3.5GHz, are expected to be auctioned in late 2020 and early 2021. Bell Media and Rogers Communications are expected to be the major players at the 3.5GHz auction in Canada, while Ericsson, Qualcomm and other major US cellular carriers indicate that they are ready with 5G infrastructure and can deploy as soon as they own the rights to the frequencies. Some carriers in the US have already launched 5G networks on the 3.5GHz frequency band, and some frequency bands above 6GHz have been auctioned off as well, with more to come later in 2021.

What is the potential impact of 5G on the design, construction and real estate industries?

5G has the potential to support radical advances in technology, and is anticipated to become the new standard for wireless mobile connectivity. However, it doesn’t replace wired networks which still set the standard on data transfer and latency, or Wi-Fi, which uses unlicensed frequency bands to distribute wireless connectivity throughout a building, often at a significantly lower cost per gigabyte.

So where is 5G anticipated to have the greatest impact?

While typical cellular users will experience enhanced performance, better connectivity and higher data speeds, the impact of 5G will mostly be experienced by devices rather than people. Devices such as self-driving cars and robotics which must be able to analyze and react quickly to situations will benefit from the low latency of new technology, and high-bandwidth mobile applications such as virtual reality (VR) and extended reality (XR) will make use of the increased data transmission speeds. 5G also has the capability to connect to a greater number of devices and use less power than previous generations, opening up a wealth of opportunity in the effortless deployment of battery-powered, highly mobile and flexible networks of 5G sensors and devices without the need for additional wiring.

Healthcare: the reliability of 5G connections is well suited to supporting critical healthcare applications, such as continuous monitoring. Higher data transmission speeds will be instrumental in facilitating high-mobility communications for telemedicine, data collection, predictive analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence. The ultra-low latency wireless connections will also support applications like mobile robotic surgery and virtual reality.

Commercial and Smart Buildings: the explosion of connected devices within buildings will rely heavily on the increased density of connections available under the new 5G standard. Buildings are becoming more connected, IoT devices and sensors are becoming more ubiquitous, and occupants have higher expectations around connectivity and performance. The lower power requirements of 5G also makes it easier and more cost-effective to deploy highly mobile, battery-powered devices throughout the building without significant infrastructure costs. This, along with enhanced reliability, will also support mission-critical applications such as monitoring of building systems.

Smart Cities: navigation systems and self-driving cars will benefit significantly, as will increased density of sensors and users – particularly in areas like stadiums and transit terminals. However, higher frequencies necessitate high density of end-points compared to previous generations, which could have aesthetic implications as antennas move from towers to street level.

In all of these examples, properly designed distributed antenna systems (DAS) will become increasingly critical in the extension of 5G coverage throughout buildings and other areas with limited signal coverage; however, the building itself can have a significant impact on the operation of these systems and must be carefully considered in the early stages of design.

How  do we design differently for future technologies like 5G?

When technologies change every five to ten years but buildings can last anywhere from 30 to 50 years (or even more), designing infrastructure to adapt to evolving requirements is critical to ensuring the building will be able to meet the needs of its occupants both today and for decades to come. One of the key changes with the evolution to 5G is that the new standards rely heavily on optical fiber infrastructure to achieve the required data transmission speeds, rather than traditional copper infrastructure. This means that legacy buildings may need to replace their existing infrastructure in order to deploy 5G throughout their building, and new construction should not only plan for the latest fiber infrastructure, but also install spare capacity to accommodate future generations of technology. It also means that 5G networks are not able to take advantage of Power over Ethernet (PoE) which supplies both data and power over a single cable, since PoE requires copper cable in order to deliver the power component. That being said, there are significant opportunities for PoE and other types of low-voltage distribution to work in conjunction with 5G by powering end-use devices and sensors.

From a building perspective, DAS that supports 5G requires a different topology from previous generations (known as a centralized radio access network or C-RAN topology), which may require changes to pathways and spaces compared to traditional DAS infrastructure. When designing 5G systems, it is also important to consider that higher frequencies do not penetrate buildings or obstructions as well as lower frequencies due to the inherent nature of the electromagnetic signal. Past generations such as 3G, 4G and LTE have used frequencies in the range of 1.9 to 2.6GHZ which had reasonable penetration, but the proposed 5G bands in Canada are significantly higher at 3.5GHz. While 3.5GHz provides better bandwidth and data transmission speeds than lower frequencies, it will also experience higher signal degradation and will require a higher density of antennas. This, along with the requirement for the latest fibre optic infrastructure, can create some unique challenges when performing upgrades in existing buildings which weren’t originally designed to accommodate 5G infrastructure. There are a number of solutions on the market to help ease the transition – and, in some cases, it is worth evaluating whether there are other technologies which could serve the same purpose with a lower capital investment.

Finally, the move towards more energy-efficient buildings can have a significant impact on deployment of wireless technologies of all types, and must be addressed early on in the design of the system. Many modern building materials have a negative effect on wireless signal penetration, meaning that a higher density of antennas is required to provide sufficient coverage. Additional testing may also be required after installation to optimize the system for the unique building environment.

Leveraging 5G in a Data-Connected World

5G has the potential to radically change our experience of connectivity and how we design the built environment. From smart cities to virtual reality, the world is becoming more connected every day – and technologies like 5G are playing a key part in the evolution of our environment. Designing buildings and systems to support these changing technologies in the decades to come will be critical as users increasingly expect a seamless integrated experience, no matter where they are.

Author:

Kim Osborne Rodriguez,P.Eng., RCDD

kim.osbornerodriguez@hhangus.com