Techno-Economic Analysis of 5G and AI Assisted Emergency Medical Care Systems: the Case of 5G-SOSIA for Tuscany

Emergency Medical Care Systems (EMCSs) are integral components of healthcare systems. Their main operational performance indicators include agility, quick response, and service quality in an end-to-end approach, from clients’ initial calls to service fulfillment or bed occupation.The development of 5G and beyond network infrastructures offers new opportunities for broader connectivity and low latency technologies in health services. Consequently, the 5G-enabled SOS Intelligent system (5G-SOSIA) has been designed and developed for the digital transformation of the Tuscany province EMCS in Italy. This platform includes AI-assisted subsystems for e-health monitoring, outdoor telemedicine, dispatching optimization, and indoor health monitoring, allocation, and telemedicine.This research provides a techno-economic analysis (TEA) for evaluating the 5G-SOSIA platform economically. The results indicate that, under a worst-case utilization scenario, a minimum cost-benefit ratio (CBR) of 2.45 with a high net present value (NPV) can be achieved over 5 years. Sensitivity analysis also reveals a wide range of technological improvements for capturing economic value based on minimum willingness to pay and percentage achievements of quality-adjusted life years (QALY).