BioTel marks 50th anniversary of service to EMS
Parkland-based unit is link to 13 fire-rescue agencies
Since 1975, countless residents of Dallas County who were transported via ground ambulance have received life-saving direction from people they never met. They are the nurses, paramedics and physicians who work with the BioTel On-Line Medical Direction Unit, housed at Parkland Memorial Hospital. BioTel staff provides critical consultation, advice and direction to emergency medical personnel in the field.
BioTel is short for biomedical telemetry, according to Courtney Edwards, DNP, MPH, RN, director of Trauma Community Outreach and BioTel EMS. “Bio refers to life and telemetry refers to the transmission of data by radio. While today BioTel has many modes of communication besides radio, the basic premise on which it was founded remains the same: to be an immediate resource supporting EMS providers, our receiving hospital partners and air medical providers in serving the needs of our pre-hospital emergency medical patients,” she said.
BioTel began operations at Parkland on Jan. 3, 1975, when James Atkins, MD, a University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center cardiologist, along with the leadership of Dallas Fire-Rescue, developed and implemented a new paramedic training program for the city of Dallas. These newly-trained paramedics required rapid access to physicians and nurses for medical consultation and direction, which was provided by Parkland resident physicians and staff nurses in the BioTel radio room. This collaboration between Parkland, UT Southwestern and Dallas Fire-Rescue continues today and along with paramedics from the surrounding city’s EMS agencies forms the core of the UTSW/BioTel EMS system.
Parkland-trained emergency and critical care nurses along with paramedics and faculty and resident physicians provide 24/7 coverage for the EMS system that today includes 13 fire department-based EMS agencies from across the county. Together they provide 911 emergency medical coverage for more than 2 million North Texans.
“BioTel differs from other centralized medical control groups because a paramedic in the field can immediately speak with a specially trained nurse, paramedic or an emergency medicine resident and faculty member any time during the day or night,” said Melody Gardner, MSN, MHA, RN, Parkland’s interim senior director of BioTel, Emergency Department, North Texas Poison Center, Trauma and Urgent Care. “Although the paramedics are well educated and very skilled, having a back-up consultation system available is extremely important and highly valued.”
The need for BioTel consultation includes: complex medical calls, cardiac arrest resuscitation, hospital destination decision-making, medical-legal issues, medication dosages, termination of resuscitation efforts and assistance with EMS policy adherence.
In extreme emergencies when a patient requires specialized services during complex extrication, BioTel can dispatch Parkland’s specialized surgical team. In addition, BioTel staff can serve as scribes when paramedics are performing complex cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the field as well as serve as a resource and liaison when a member of a fire department or EMS agency is injured in the line of duty.
“BioTel began as a small program 50 years ago and today is a critical resource for hundreds of EMS providers serving thousands of patients in North Texas,” Edwards said. “It’s a resource that not many people know about but that provides behind-the-scenes lifesaving service 24/7.”
For more information about services at Parkland, please visit www.parklandhealth.org.
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