Apparatus for communicating with a nurse call system is provided. The apparatus includes a hospital bed and a module spaced from the hospital bed. The hospital bed has a power cord including a first AC plug that plugs into an AC receptacle of the module. The module has a separate power cord that plugs into a standard AC power receptacle. Thus, power is provided to the hospital bed via the module. Bed data is communicated to the module via at least one conductor of the power cord that couples the bed to the module. The module has circuitry that extracts the bed data sent from the bed via the power cord and communicates the bed data to the nurse call system.
