About BioTel

The History of BioTel
48 Years of Exemplary Service to the EMS Community and to Our Patients 1975 - 2024

The name “BioTel” joins the words "biomedical telemetry": "biomedical” referring to life, and "telemetry" referring to the transmission of data by electronic communication. The BioTel of today has many modes of communication, but the basic premise upon which it was founded remains the same: to be an immediate resource supporting the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center/Parkland Health BioTel EMS agencies’ providers, our receiving hospital partners, and the area’s air medical providers in serving the needs of our prehospital emergency medical patients.

BioTel began operations at Parkland Memorial Hospital on January 3, 1975, when UT Southwestern cardiologist James Atkins, MD, and Parkland Trauma Surgeon Erwin Thal, MD, in partnership with the leadership of the Dallas Fire­-Rescue Department, developed and implemented a new EMS training program for the City of Dallas. Parkland’s resident physicians and staff nurses provided newly minted, UTSW-trained Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedics rapid access to physicians and nurses for medical consultation and direction through the BioTel Radio Room. This collaboration between UTSW, Parkland, and Dallas Fire-Rescue lives on today and has expanded to now include EMS agencies from many other cities in Dallas County, forming the heart of the UT Southwestern/Parkland BioTel EMS system.

The BioTel Radio Room was initially located in a spare treatment room in the old Parkland ER and utilized just two radios. At first, physicians from various specialties such as Internal Medicine, OB/Gyn, Surgery, and Trauma took calls from the field. Later, Cardiology fellows began taking calls for medical emergencies, sometimes spending their nights answering calls in BioTel while watching over in-hospital patient cardiac monitors. With the opening of the new Parkland Memorial Hospital in 2015, BioTel moved into a larger, multi-room communications center.

Under the guidance of Paul Pepe, MD and Ray Fowler, MD, BioTel developed and modernized through the early 2000s. Continuing in their footsteps, Marshal Isaacs, MD, now Chief Medical Officer for the City of Dallas/Dallas Fire-Rescue served along with BioTel Senior Director Melody Gardner, BioTel Director Courtney Edwards, BioTel Manager LuAnn McKee, and BioTel Social Work Manager Katie Afflerbach to expand the BioTel System and innovate additional system capabilities. In 2022, Andrew Hogan, MD, assumed the position of Medical Director of the UT Southwestern/Parkland BioTel EMS System. Comprised of 14 EMS agencies, today’s BioTel EMS System provides 911 emergency medical control, consultation, and social work services for the EMS agencies serving more than 1.5 million North Texans.

The member EMS agencies of the BioTel System are:

• Acadian Ambulance Service, State of Texas
• Cedar Hill Fire Department
• Cockrell Hill Fire Department
• Dallas Fire-Rescue
• DeSoto Fire-Rescue
• Duncanville Fire Department
• Highland Park Department of Public Safety
• Hutchins Fire Department
• Irving Fire Department
• Lancaster Fire Department
• Mesquite Fire Department
• Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety
• University Park Fire Department
• Wilmer Fire Department

In addition, the following entities are also members of the UT Southwestern/BioTel EMS family:

• Dallas Police Department
• American Airlines Center 
• Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Dallas Independent School District
• Dallas Love Field 
• Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport

Throughout the years, the dedicated men and women of these agencies, together with the support of BioTel's expert staff have provided the highest quality emergency medical evaluation, treatment, and transportation within these North Texas communities. Today, BioTel provides 24 hours-a-day online medical consultation and direction through a team of highly trained and experienced nurses, paramedics, emergency medicine resident physicians, and UT Southwestern emergency medicine faculty physicians. Evidence-based EMS Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) direct patient care and are regularly updated and refined by the Medical Direction Team and EMS system stakeholders.

The most frequent reasons for BioTel consultation include:

1. Complex medical calls
2. Cardiac arrest resuscitation
3. Hospital destination decision-making
4. Medicolegal issues
5. Medication dosages
6. Termination of resuscitative efforts
7. Assistance with EMS policy adherence

In addition to providing online medical direction to our EMS providers, BioTel provides receiving hospital notifications for critical trauma, burn, heart attack, and acute stroke patients. BioTel often assists air and ground EMS personnel, communicating critical information necessary for them to provide emergency care and transport to their critically ill and injured patients.

In 2015, out of a request by BioTel agency EMS chiefs to better meet the needs of patients who did not require emergency hospital transport, BioTel developed a cutting-edge EMS Social Work program to address complex social issues affecting our patients. The BioTel Social Work program was created with the primary goal of providing intensive community based social work services to residents of Dallas County not only in their communities, but ideally in their home environment.

Finally, BioTel is an active participant in international EMS prehospital research studies attempting to improve the outcomes of patients suffering from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and from severe trauma, among others.

From its humble beginnings in 1975, BioTel has grown from being a simple online consultative service into a sophisticated EMS communications network that is a critical resource for thousands of EMS providers in service to a quarter million patients in North Texas each year.

Any questions regarding BioTel may be directed to BioTel's Medical Director, Dr. Hogan at Andrew.Hogan@UTSouthwestern.edu.