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Biotelemetry (or medical telemetry) involves the application of
telemetry Telemetry is the in situ collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Greek roots ''tele'', "remote", an ...
in
biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...
,
medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
, and other
health care Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health pr ...
to remotely
monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, West ...
various
vital signs Vital signs (also known as vitals) are a group of the four to six most crucial medical signs that indicate the status of the body's vital (life-sustaining) functions. These measurements are taken to help assess the general physical health of a ...
of ambulatory patients.


Application

The most common usage for biotelemetry is in dedicated cardiac care telemetry units or step-down units in hospitals. Although virtually any physiological signal could be transmitted, application is typically limited to cardiac monitoring and
SpO2 Oxygen saturation is the fraction of oxygen-saturated hemoglobin relative to total hemoglobin (unsaturated + saturated) in the blood. The human body requires and regulates a very precise and specific balance of oxygen in the blood. Normal arte ...
. Biotelemetry is increasingly being used to understand animals and wildlife by remotely measuring physiology, behaviour and energetic status. It can be used to understand the way that animals migrate, and also the environment that they are experiencing by measuring the abiotic variables, and how it is affecting their physiological status by measuring biotic variables such as heart rate and temperature. Telemetry systems can either be attached externally to animals, or placed internally, with the types of transmission for the devices dependent on the environment that the animal moves in. For example, to study the movement of swimming animals signals using radio transmission or ultrasonic transmission are often used but land based or flying animals can be tracked with GPS and satellite transmissions.


Components of a biotelemetry system

A typical biotelemetry system comprises: * Sensors appropriate for the particular signals to be monitored * Battery-powered, Patient worn transmitters * A Radio Antenna and Receiver * A display unit capable of concurrently presenting information from multiple patients


History

Some of the first uses of biotelemetry systems date to the early
space race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the t ...
, where physiological signals obtained from animals or human passengers were transmitted back to Earth for analysis (the name of the medical device manufacturer Spacelabs Healthcare is a reflection of their start in 1958 developing biotelemetry systems for the early U.S. space program). Animal biotelemetry has been used since at least the 1980s. Animal biotelemetry has now advanced to not only understand the physiology and movement of free ranging animals, but also how different animals interact, for example, between predators and prey.


Current trends

Because of the crowding of the
radio spectrum The radio spectrum is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum with frequencies from 0  Hz to 3,000  GHz (3  THz). Electromagnetic waves in this frequency range, called radio waves, are widely used in modern technology, particul ...
due to the recent introduction of
digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...
in the United States and many other countries, the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
(FCC) as well as similar agencies elsewhere have recently begun to allocate dedicated frequency bands for exclusive biotelemetry usage, for example, the Wireless Medical Telemetry Service (WMTS). The FCC has designated the American Society for Healthcare Engineering of the American Hospital Association (ASHE/AHA) as the frequency coordinator for the WMTS. In addition, there are many products that utilize commonly available standard
radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30  hertz (Hz) and 300  gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...
devices such as
Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...
and IEEE
802.11 IEEE 802.11 is part of the IEEE 802 set of local area network (LAN) technical standards, and specifies the set of media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) protocols for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) computer com ...
.


See also

*
Battlefield medicine Battlefield medicine, also called field surgery and later combat casualty care, is the treatment of wounded combatants and non-combatants in or near an area of combat. Civilian medicine has been greatly advanced by procedures that were first ...
* Heart rate monitor * Remote physiological monitoring *
Remote patient monitoring Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is a technology to enable monitoring of patients outside of conventional clinical settings, such as in the home or in a remote area, which may increase access to care and decrease healthcare delivery costs. RPM invol ...


References

{{reflist


External links


International Society on Biotelemetry


Biomedical engineering Medical monitoring Telehealth