A monitoring system is provided that enables the monitoring of a heart in a living organism by continuously measuring both pressure and volume in a chamber of the heart, preferably the left ventricle (LV). The pressure and volume measurements are acquired using a single sensing tip and are communicated to a transmitting device to be wirelessly transmitted to a receiving device, wherein they are used to monitor the heart. The system may also incorporate a temperature measurement that can be transmitted with the volume and pressure measurement to provide further data for monitoring. The system may also extract an electrocardiogram (ECG) signal from the volume measurement. This allows the monitoring of up to four signals that can be used to determine the beat by beat state of cardiac output and any changes caused by disease or therapy. In addition to a compact design, the system may also incorporate an energy saving timing scheme that reduces the power required per acquisition cycle and thus increases the operational lifetime of the transmitting device.