Bed exit alert silence with automatic re-enable

• US 8,717,181 B2
• Filed: 01/31/2011
• Issued: 05/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hill-Rom Services Incorporated (Baxter International Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hill-Rom Services Incorporated (Baxter International Inc.)
• Inventors: Tallent, Dan R., Kovach, Michelle, Allen, James M., Stanley, Timothy A., Bhai, Aziz A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Benjamin C
• Assistant Examiner(s): BURGDORF, STEPHEN R
• Application Number:
  US13/017,267
• Publication Number:
  US 20120025992A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,191 Days
• Field of Search: 560/0, 5613-620, 573/2, 594/0, 177/45, 177/145, 340/573.1, 340/573.4, 340/573.7, 340/575, 340665-667, 340/691.1, 340/691.3, 340/6.1, 340/8.1
• US Class Current: 340/573.4
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/22 responsive to presence or absence of persons
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/008 Alarm setting and unsetting, i.e. arming or disarming of the security system

Abstract

A hospital bed has a bed exit alarm system including an audible alarm that sounds when an alert condition is detected, such as when a patient exits the bed or moves toward exiting the bed. The bed exit alarm system includes at least one user input that is used to enable the bed exit alarm system and a bed exit alarm silence input that stops the audible alarm from sounding or that prevents the alarm from sounding. The bed exit alarm system is configured such that after the bed exit alarm silence input is used, the bed exit alarm system is re-enabled automatically without any action by a caregiver in response to one or more sensors sensing that the patient is, once again, supported on the bed.

Claims

1. A hospital bed comprising

a patient support structure,

a bed exit alarm system carried by the patient support structure, the bed exit alarm system having an audible alarm that sounds when an alert condition is detected by the bed exit alarm system due to an amount of patient movement relative to the patient support structure, the bed exit alarm system includes at least one user input that is used to enable the bed exit alarm system when a patient is supported by the patient support structure, the audible alarm sounding if the bed exit alarm system is enabled and the alert condition is detected,

a bed exit alarm silence input, wherein use of the bed exit alarm silence input achieves stopping the audible alarm from sounding and preventing the alarm from sounding depending upon whether the bed exit alarm silence input is used subsequent to or prior to the detection of the alert condition, wherein the bed exit alarm system is configured such that after the bed exit alarm silence input is used, the bed exit alarm system is re-enabled automatically without any action by a caregiver in response to the bed exit alarm system sensing that the patient is, once again, supported on the support structure, and

a display screen coupled to the patient support structure, the display screen showing how much time remains before the alarm will sound if no further action is taken by the caregiver while the patient is off of the patient support structure or by the patient to return to being supported by the patient support structure, wherein the display screen is a touchscreen display that is used to selectively program a silence duration and a suspend duration, the silence duration corresponding to a first amount of time the audible alarm is silenced in response to the bed exit alarm silence input being used after the occurrence of the alert condition, the suspend duration corresponding to a second amount of time the audible alarm remains dormant in response to the bed exit alarm silence input being used prior to the occurrence of the alert condition, wherein the first and second amounts of time are programmable to be unequal.

2. The hospital bed of claim 1, wherein the bed exit alarm system includes control circuitry and a plurality of sensors that produce signals from which the control circuitry determines whether the alert condition exists.

3. The hospital bed of claim 2, wherein the plurality of sensors comprise at least one load cell.

4. The hospital bed of claim 2, wherein the plurality of sensors comprise at least one force sensitive resistor.

5. The hospital bed of claim 1, wherein the bed exit alarm silence input comprises a button that is pressed.

6. The hospital bed of claim 5, wherein the button comprises a membrane switch.

7. The hospital bed of claim 5, wherein the patient support structure comprises a barrier and the button is located on the barrier.

8. The hospital bed of claim 7, wherein the barrier comprises one of a siderail and a footboard.

9. The hospital bed of claim 1, further comprising a first light coupled to the patient support structure and wherein the first light blinks after the bed exit alarm silence input is used and prior to the bed exit alarm system being re-enabled automatically.

10. The hospital bed of claim 9, wherein the patient support structure comprises a barrier having a second light and the second light also blinks after the bed exit alarm silence input is used and prior to the bed exit alarm system being re-enabled automatically.

11. The hospital bed of claim 10, wherein the bed exit alarm system can be enabled in a plurality of system modes, each system mode requiring a different amount of movement by the patient relative to the patient support structure before an alarm condition is considered to exist, and wherein the second light that flashes is adjacent to an indicia on the barrier that indicates in which system mode of the plurality of system modes the bed exit alarm system has been enabled.

12. The hospital bed of claim 1, wherein the bed exit alarm system can be enabled in a first system mode in which movement by the patient relative to the patient support structure by a first amount is considered to be the alert condition, wherein the bed exit alarm system can be enabled in an out-of-bed mode in which movement by the patient relative to the patient support structure by a second amount, greater than the first amount, is considered to be the alert condition, and wherein, if the bed exit alarm system was enabled in the first mode prior to the bed exit alarm silence input being used, the bed exit system will first re-enable in the out-of-bed mode as an interim step as the patient enters onto the patient support structure and then will re-enable in the first mode after the patient has more fully moved onto the patient support structure.

13. The hospital bed of claim 12, wherein the bed exit alarm system re-enables in the out-of-bed mode in response to a threshold amount of weight being detected as being added to the patient support structure.

14. The hospital bed of claim 1, wherein the at least one user input can also be used for manually disabling the bed exit alarm system.

15. The hospital bed of claim 14, wherein the at least one user input comprises a key button and a plurality of mode buttons, each of the mode buttons corresponding to a mode of operation of the bed exit alarm system.

16. The hospital bed of claim 15, wherein the bed exit alarm system is configured so that, if the bed exit alarm system is disabled, the bed exit alarm system becomes enabled in response to the key button being pressed and a selected one of the plurality of mode buttons being pressed and wherein the bed exit alarm system is configured so that, if the bed exit alarm system is enabled, the bed exit alarm system becomes disabled in response to the key button being pressed and a selected one of the plurality of mode buttons being pressed.

17. The hospital bed of claim 1, further comprising a power plug coupled to the patient support structure, wherein the bed exit alarm system becomes disabled in response to the power plug being unplugged from a power source regardless of whether the bed exit alert silence input has been used.

18. The hospital bed of claim 1, wherein the bed exit alarm system is configured to sound an arming tone after the bed exit alarm system is re-enabled automatically.

19. The hospital bed of claim 1, wherein after the bed exit alarm silence input is used, a first message is transmitted from the bed to a remote computer device to indicate that the bed exit alarm system is in a suspend mode.

20. The hospital bed of claim 19, wherein after the bed exit alarm system is re-enabled automatically, a second message is transmitted from the bed to the remote computer device to indicate that the bed exit alarm system is no longer in the suspend mode and is re-enabled.