Hacking Your Hospital Bed

by The Piano Guy

Having recently been a multi-day guest of a local hospital, I was left to wait when it was time to check out.

The beds were nice enough.  They moved all the ways one would expect, the TV worked, they had a control panel for turning on and off the room lights and an emergency call button.  All the typical stuff.

I did get roomed with a guy during my stay, however, and that made me wonder about the bed.  He was agitated and more than a bit senile.  Every time he would try to get out of the bed, an alarm would go off and they would have to come in and try to secure him again.  I didn't understand (at first) how that worked from a technical perspective, as there were no motion sensors in the room.

On the last day, I found out.  I was being discharged, and left alone in the room with the bed.  I noticed the sticker on the panel at the foot of the bed that said "For hospital staff use only."  Now, if you want to attract the undivided attention of flies, get some dog poop.  If you want to attract the undivided attention of a hacker, put a sticker on it that says "For staff use only."

The bed was a Stryker Secure II.  Made in Michigan, this is a company that my lawyer has bought stock in, but I digress.  Before I lifted the panel, I took a closer look and noted the light indicators on the panel.  There was a power indicator, a bed motion locked indicator, a warning light about the brake not being set, and an indicator for "Bed Exit On."  I opened the panel, and no locking mechanism or alarm went off.

The first button was siderail control lights.  It was possible for the nurse to override whether or not the patient could turn on or off his or her own lights.  No big deal.  The next button, Bed Motion, prevented the bed from moving at all with one button.  The next set of buttons locked out the individual siderail component movements.  I had to keep my leg up.  The hospital could have enforced that, but I was happy to be compliant.

The next set of buttons allowed the hospital to set the angles from their part of the bed.  The doctors would use this now and again during my stay, but more fun to watch was when the housekeepers had to remake the bed.  They would bring it up chest high to make the bed.  I wish I could do that with my bed at home - no more bending over.

The bed doubles as a scale.  This feature can also be leveraged to make sure that the patient doesn't get out of bed without notifying staff.  Please don't hurt yourself, but if you're ever in the bed and you can disarm the alarm, you can get out of bed unnoticed.

As a scale, from playing with the menus, I was able to figure out that the weight can be charted and trended over time, and of course is available in pounds or kilograms.  All the data of the bed displays on a little plasma display.

The day before I was discharged, they had to switch me to a different room (because of the agitated senile roommate).  I understand that it would have been more fair for him to be moved, but it made more sense for me to move.  When they move a patient like this, they should let them keep the same bed if possible.  They wheeled my bed over, and forgot to lock it.  I went to get on it, and it started sliding across the floor at a rather rapid pace, toward my new roommate.  It was all I could do to stop the bed from pushing into his (through the curtain).  At that point, I moved the bed back, found the brake pedal on the side of the bed, locked it, and was able to get onto the non-moving bed.  Even though this bed weighed hundreds of pounds, it rolled very easily.  Heaven forbid there should be a fire and a patient isn't ambulatory, I'm sure they could get them out of there quite fast.

The one mystery I didn't learn about the beds in my time there was how they communicated with the light in the wall and the TV.  Since there is only the one power cable that connects the bed to the wall (that I could find), I have to assume that there must be an X10 control.  I went to their website:

stryker.com/en-us/products/PatientHandlingEMSandEvacuationEquipment/Beds/MedSurgeBeds/SecureII

and didn't find anything about how to connect the bed to the rest of the control circuits.

While I hope you have no need for a hospital stay, if you do, hope that your hospital has Stryker beds - unless you're trying to get out undetected.