Deluxe Hospital Beds

Why Use a Deluxe Hospital Bed?

If a person is going through a circumstance where they need long-term bed rest, becomes bedridden, or a caregiver is required to provide adequate care and treatment, then more often than not the most valuable piece of equipment for the patient is a deluxe hospital bed.

A deluxe hospital bed can offer many benefits to the patient, caregiver, and medical staff. Most deluxe hospital beds are similar in their ability to offer reliability, comfort, and ease-of-care to the user who will be spending a large amount of their time in bed.

What Are Some Benefits of a Deluxe Hospital Bed?

While standard hospital beds offer patient comfort and safety while providing medical access to the patient, the average time of stay in hospitals is 4.5 days for the user of a standard hospital bed. Standard hospital beds can easily offer most patients whatever comfort and assistance they may need during their short stay in a medical facility. However, for an individual who must be in bed for an extended length of time, a deluxe hospital bed can offer more benefits to both the user and the caregiver.

While deluxe hospital beds share many of the same benefits for patient comfort and medical staff/caregiver access, the different styles of deluxe hospital beds offer some added benefits. Be sure to inquire about all of the particular highlights and features of a specific deluxe hospital bed you may need to accommodate individual requirements.

One of the main benefits of a deluxe hospital bed is the articulation of the bed frame/mattress. The power-source for the bed frame movement and articulation usually comes from three to four powerful and quiet electric motors. These motors allow a number of adjustments by the user or caregiver with a touch of 6-10 buttons on either the hand-held remote of the patient or a footboard/side rail nurse control panel for use by the caregiver/medical staff.

By utilizing the button-control, these highly technological hospital beds usually allow the patient or the caregiver at least 5 adjustable positions for comfort or medical procedures.

Trendelenburg Position: A position where the patient lies flat on the back, with the feet 15 – 30 degrees higher than the head. This allows gravity to help pull the intra-abdominal organs away from the pelvis, allowing doctors, nurses or caregivers clear access to the pelvic and abdomen areas.

Reverse Trendelenburg Position: This position has the head higher than the feet. Alternating between Reverse Trendelenburg and Trendelenburg positions can help improve blood pressure and low cardiac output.

Fowler’s Position: An upright patient position with the backrest set between a 15-90 degree angle allows patients to rest their legs straight out or with the knees slightly bent. Because the patient’s chest is better able to expand and oxygenate in this position, it is an ideal position for respiratory distress as well as when implementing gastric and oral feeding tubes to the patient. This is also a good postop position for pneumonectomy patients as well for taking specific types of bedside x-rays, drainage after abdominal surgery, uterine drainage for postpartum women, patient grooming, or for sitting comfortably while talking with guests or watching television.

There are several different types of Fowler’s positions.

- Low Fowler’s position is when the patient’s head is elevated 15-30 degrees.
- Semi-Fowler’s position is 30-45 degrees.
- Standard Fowler’s position is 45-60 degrees
- High Fowler’s position is 80-90 degrees.

Mechanical CPR Position: With a touch of a button on the hand/nurse control pad, the bed will completely flatten down in the backrest area, creating an ideal emergency CPR administering position to the patient.

Height Adjustment: The height of the bed from the floor can vary between a low of 7” up to 35” among the different styles of deluxe hospital beds. The lower height to the floor can assist patients to more easily and safely get in and out of bed as well as reduce the risk of patient injury from falling out of the bed. The higher height of the bed will allow medical staff or caregivers easier, more ergonomic and quicker access to examine or care for the patient without stooping and bending.

By using the hand-control, the patient can enjoy a variety of bed positions, easily adjusting the different bed sections, the head or backrest, the knees, the feet, and height of the bed, to relax in the most comfortable position desired.

With the hand-rail or foot-board control pad, the medical staff or caregiver can adjust the bed position for patient comfort, and for accessibility to medical exams or procedures.

Other Options/Benefits of Deluxe Hospital Beds

There are a number of other options and benefits that deluxe hospital beds provide, as well as specific benefits related to particular beds.

For example, there is a deluxe hospital bed that can function as a true sleep surface as well as a recliner that is designed for use during procedures such as dialysis, oncology, nocturnal dialysis and many other intensive healthcare procedures.

Other options for deluxe hospital beds to assist the long-term care individual can include:

● All electronics on the bed that are splash proof and protected from spilled liquid
● Wall bumpers that help prevent damaging of the walls and furniture when moving the bed
● Edema foot ratchet
● Under-bed lighting and backlit handset
● High impact side rails
● Patient exit alarm
● Quick release high impact head and foot boards
● Bag hooks on both sides of the bed
● Pillow speaker with an integrated nurse call system
● Y-Cable for the handset to be plugged into either side of the bed
● Foot board control panel for medical staff/caregiver
● Drainage hooks
● Scale control with a digital readout
● Sturdy swivel casters with a central locking and steering feature
● Battery back-up
● A handset that can offer bed height and angle indicators

When searching for the correct deluxe hospital bed for the user, be sure to research all of the options of each bed to make sure it is the right long-term investment and piece of equipment that will best suit the user. A deluxe hospital bed will possibly be where patients could be spending a large portion of their time, and it might be the most important piece of durable medical equipment that patients would require for comfort and safety for themselves and their caregivers.

Hulet Smith, OT
Rehabmart Co-Founder & CEO

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