Patient support apparatuses with nurse call audio management

Abstract

A patient support apparatus includes a frame, a support surface for supporting a patient, and a nurse call interface adapted to provide an interface between a bed and a wall-mounted nurse call outlet having a plurality of pins to thereby allow a patient supported on the bed to communicate with a remotely positioned nurse. The nurse call interface coordinates the duplex signals of the bed's microphone and speaker with the half duplex nurse audio signals from the nurse call system. More particularly, the interface includes a nurse call audio channel communicatively coupled to first and second audio pins of the plurality of pins of the nurse call outlet, a bed microphone channel to a bed microphone, a bed speaker channel to a bed speaker, and a switch controller adapted to selectively connect the nurse call audio channel to the bed microphone channel or to the bed speaker channel.