Modern patient care using biotelemetry: its potential and technical realization at present and in the future

Incorporation of biotelemetry has a number of advantages, such as reduction of the impediment of the information source (patient, subject or animal) reduction of the psychological effects on the information source, reduction of measuring artifacts, reduction of the risk for electroshock, reduction of the complexity of monitoring of physiological variables, as well as a potential reduction of the total cost of patient care. Therefore, biotelemetry may be incorporated advantageously not only in areas where this technique is absolutely needed (sport, work, function control during realistic circumstances of activity), but also in other areas such as patient monitoring during intensive care and in the operating room. There have been a number of drawbacks in biotelemetry for application in patient monitoring in the past mainly due to the problem of frequency allocations and regulations, but with the newly developed infrared systems future applications of biotelemetry in clinical monitoring seems promising.