Cerner teams up to make high-tech hospital beds

Kansas City Star, February 26, 2008

Cerner Corp. is partnering with manufacturer Hillenbrand Industries to feed data collected by "intelligent bed systems" into Cerner's medical records system. Initially, data including a patient's weight, bed-rail position and head elevation will be collected by beds manufactured by Hillenbrand subsidiary Hill-Rom and fed into Cerner's software applications. Later, other data will be collected and included, for instance allowing the bed to communicate with Cerner software when a patient calls for a nurse. The partnership will increase interoperability among medical devices and software used to monitor a patient's progress, and as result improve care, said Hill-Rom representatives.