How Siriraj Transformed a 130-Year-Old Hospital into ASEAN’s First 5G Smart Hospital in 5 Years

As the largest public hospital in Thailand, Siriraj boasts a rich history dating back to 1888 when it was established by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V). Today, the institution houses over 2,000 beds, serves more than 3 million patient visits annually, and trains approximately 250 new medical graduates each year. Operating an organization of this immense scale comes with profound legacy challenges, including long wait times, fragmented data systems, and the heavy reliance on manual labor which proved particularly vulnerable during global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.

The turning point arrived in early 2020 during the peak of COVID-19, when Siriraj served as a frontline defense. The immediate operational bottleneck involved transporting medicines, medical supplies, and documents manually across the hospital, a process that escalated infection risks with every touch. Recognizing that temporary fixes would not ensure long-term survival, the hospital partnered with global technology leader Huawei alongside support from the NBTC, setting a bold core mission: ensuring that medical data arrives at its destination before the patient does.

Siriraj understood that becoming a smart hospital extends far beyond placing computers on desks or launching queue-booking apps. Instead, it required weaving together a comprehensive technology stack, ranging from a 5G Private Network and Hybrid Cloud to advanced AI analytics and autonomous logistics. The system architecture relies on a multi-layered approach consisting of three core pillars, including a dedicated 5G Private Network within the hospital grounds paired with Edge Computing (MEC) servers to process heavy medical imaging files like DICOM, CT scans, and MRI locally with minimal latency.

To safeguard patient safety, Siriraj avoided a high-risk simultaneous overhaul, opting instead to break the transformation down into 9 specialized modules: