Cerner teams up to make high-tech hospital beds

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.