Patent ID: 8717181

Claim:
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.