The GSMA–Global Health Connector partnership plays a pivotal role in advancing connected healthcare globally. More than a decade ago, Global Health Connector launched its first Digital Health & Wellness Summit at GSMA’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, recognising early that digital health could only reach its full potential if underpinned by robust, secure connectivity. What began as a pioneering convening of digital health leaders has grown into a sustained collaboration attracting healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, technology innovators and telecom operators to shape strategy and accelerate impact.
This vision was rooted in a simple but powerful insight: meaningful digital transformation in health requires closer alignment between healthcare and telecommunications. Telecommunications bring essential capabilities to the sector — from secure, high-performance infrastructure and private networks to interoperability across systems and even across borders, alongside advanced cybersecurity and privacy protections.
Today, that shared commitment has evolved into a multi-year strategic partnership designed to accelerate the deployment of digital health solutions at scale. GSMA, representing over 1,000 telecom companies worldwide, contributes the infrastructure capability required to translate advanced connectivity — including 5G and dedicated networks — into real-world operational solutions for health systems.
At the heart of the partnership is a clear shift from experimentation to measurable impact. As Richard Cockell, Head of GSMA Foundry, explains:
“How do we take that capability and translate it into problems that your members are waking up every day that they need to try and fix?”
This principle reflects the move from abstract telecom innovation to practical application: optimising clinical workflows, improving equipment visibility, enabling secure data segmentation, and supporting real-time collaboration across care teams — not just within hospitals, but across regions and borders.
Beyond operational improvement, the collaboration aims to generate broader economic and societal benefits by converging finance, health and science. By strengthening connectivity as the backbone of modern healthcare, the partnership seeks to deliver value not only for clinicians and health systems, but also for patients, families, researchers and communities worldwide.
Digital health is evolving rapidly, and connected healthcare is emerging as the new standard for patient care and operational efficiency. Hospitals, research institutions, and life sciences organisations are increasingly pushing the limits of legacy networks. Traditional Wi-Fi and public connectivity were never designed to support the reliability, security, low latency, and operational control required for AI-enabled diagnostics, connected medical devices, robotics, smart logistics, or distributed clinical research.
As healthcare becomes more data-intensive and operationally complex, connectivity is no longer an IT utility, it is strategic infrastructure that enables connected healthcare.
Private 5G networks are emerging as the deliberate infrastructure choice that allows hospitals to scale digital health solutions safely and reliably. When designed and operated in partnership with telecom providers, private 5G networks deliver:
These capabilities underpin advanced connected healthcare initiatives, from AI-assisted imaging and robotic collaboration to digital twins, intelligent supply chains, and virtual care platforms.
The challenge in deploying 5G in hospitals is no longer purely technological — it is organisational. Healthcare leaders must align with telecom operators around ownership, governance, and long-term operating models. Key questions include:
Emerging models such as neutral host networks, shared campus infrastructure, and co-investment approaches are enabling hospitals to extend resilient connectivity across estates and regions. When alignment exists, connectivity becomes more than bandwidth, it becomes the foundation for connected healthcare, enabling real-time data exchange, virtual care, intelligent logistics, and AI-driven clinical decision-making.
By bringing infrastructure providers, healthcare leaders, and policymakers into the same strategic dialogue, the partnership helps ensure that 5G deployment is aligned with clinical priorities, governance frameworks, and long-term operating models. GSMA’s APAC 5G Industry Community, for example, has enabled hospitals across Asia to implement operational 5G deployments while sharing best practices and accelerating replication across the region.
The proof is already here. Across Asia Pacific, hospitals are deploying operational 5G infrastructure in partnership with GSMA’s APAC 5G Industry Community:
These deployments demonstrate that when connected healthcare is treated as core infrastructure, hospitals can scale AI, automation, robotics, and digital platforms reliably. They also highlight the critical importance of partnerships between hospital leadership, clinicians, technology providers, and telecom operators.
One of digital health’s persistent challenges is the “pilot trap”, innovative solutions that succeed in isolation but fail to scale.
By embedding secure, high-performance 5G networks as infrastructure, hospitals create a stable foundation for AI, automation, and digital platforms to operate consistently. This reduces integration risk and increases long-term return on investment.
The GSMA ecosystem facilitates replication rather than isolated innovation, connecting healthcare providers with telecom operators, infrastructure vendors, and policymakers to accelerate the global adoption of connected healthcare solutions.
These themes will take centre stage at the MWC Digital Health Summit: Powering the Future of Healthcare Through Connectivity.
The summit will explore where advanced connectivity is already delivering measurable value, enabling interoperable platforms, real-time clinical data exchange, AI-enabled services, and virtual care at scale. Healthcare leaders, telecom operators, investors, and policymakers will examine how infrastructure choices today will shape care delivery over the next decade.
The future of digital health will not be determined by applications alone. It will be defined by the strength, security, and governance of the networks that power connected healthcare.
Join the conversation at MWC Barcelona on Tuesday 3 March: MWC Agenda Link
