Quick Guide To The Best Hospital Beds For Home

What Is a Hospital Bed For Home?

For those who have recently returned from the hospital or are looking at palliative care in the home, a good investment is a hospital bed. It allows anyone who has spent a period of time in hospital, to be able to return home much quicker than usual and be able to sleep safely.

If you want to learn more, please visit our website.

Simply put, a hospital bed for home is a specially designed bed that includes a variety of useful features to improve the comfort of the individual and the convenience of the carer.

What Features Should I Look For In The Best Hospital Bed?

We have decades of experience when it comes to assisting people in finding the best hospital bed for their needs. We’re here to help you find a comfortable and cost-effective solution. It's important for those who are in recovery to be as comfortable as possible and being in your own home has been proven to help speed recovery.

What Key Features Should You Be Looking For?

1. A Comfortable Profiling Base

Firstly, the most important component of a hospital bed is its frame.

It’s essential to ensure that you have a profiling frame that can adjust to a comfortable sleeping and resting position. It needs to be sturdy, to be able to withstand plenty of use, particularly if recovery time is long or you are looking at palliative care.

2. Safety Features

Secondly, you should ensure the bed has an anti-entrapment mechanism that will sense an obstruction (such as a carer’s hand) and stop the movement of the bed. This is a very important safety feature to avoid any injuries.

Look for additional safety features, such as side rails to help with grip and reduce the chance of a fall from the bed.

3. Accessibility

As this is a bed specifically for someone in recovery or palliative care, it's extremely important that the bed is easily accessible. The bed needs to be comfortable for the user to get in and out of.

To ensure you choose the right bed, research the adjustable bed mechanisms. There are several types and its important to get your head around these

Hi-Lo Mechanism

This enables the hospital bed to be raised and lowered to help the user get into and out of bed.

Tilting

A tilting mechanism gives you the option to tilt the angle of the bed to help with certain medical conditions such as swollen joints and high blood pressure.

If you feel you don't need these, just make sure you choose a bed that suits the users' needs. A standard adjustable bed could be the answer as this will include the standard five point mechanism.

4. Appearance

Hospital beds tend to look fairly medical and can often make the user feel worse. The great news about hospital beds for home is that they don’t have to look like traditional clinical hospital beds. In fact today, hospital beds for home come in a wide variety of styles to suit you and your bedroom.

For example, the Adjust4Sleep Home Care Bed, as seen above, has a fully upholstered surround while maintaining the height adjustment and profiling functionality of a hospital bed. Plus, with a choice of upholstery and optional extras, the Home Care can be fully personalised to suit you and your home.

5. Easy to use Controls

Regardless of whether it will be the individual using it, or the carer, you should look for a hospital bed for home that has simple to use controls.

On the handset look for large, well-spaced buttons and clear labelling for the different bed functions.

Top tip- Make sure you have a go at using the buttons during your demonstration to ensure you find it simple to use.

6. Helpful Accessories

Look for a hospital bed for home that can be personalised to your needs and requirements with a variety of optional extras to choose from.

Popular accessories for medical beds include:

Cot sides: These bed rails help to prevent falling out of bed at night.
Reading Lights: Directional lights to help with reading.
Inbuilt drawers: Inbuilt drawers create some useful additional storage space for your bedroom.
Cut out sides: Is there an option to add cut-out sides if you will need to use a hoist to get in and out of bed.

7. Other Considerations

Payment– What is your budget? And have you taken into consideration you will need a new base as well as a specialist mattress? Are you able to pay in instalments? And do you need to put down a deposit? Can you try it before you buy it? Reputable companies should provide a free demonstration where you can experience the bed for yourself.

Check the dimensions– Will the hospital bed fit comfortably in the room, with easy access in and out of the door and around the room?

Installation– Does the company you have chosen to deliver and install the bed, and is there an option to take your old bed away?

Upkeep- How does the medical need to be maintained and is any servicing recommended?

What Are The Benefits Of Having a Hospital Bed For Home?

Height and Position Adjustability

An electric hospital bed is perfect for people with limited mobility who need a similar level of comfort and mobility to that which is provided by a hospital bed. Profiling hospital beds for home are useful for those needing help sitting up, lying down, staying in bed, or those having difficulty moving, turning, or getting in or out of bed as a result of their surgery.

Improved Accessibility

When beds have full height adjustability, this can also make it a lot easier to get in and out of bed, so you can be less reliant on carers. Adjustable height beds also mean that the bed can be positioned at the best height for wheelchair transfers, or can help lift you from a sitting to a standing position with the minimum of effort, just by pressing the appropriate button on the electronic handset.

Health Benefits

Hospital Beds for the home can greatly improve the quality of sleep, which is essential for recovering after surgery, or for those with pre-existing medical conditions.

Helpful For Carers Too

Another benefit of Medical beds at home is that they make it much easier for the care team too. As they can be adjusted so easily, it prevents the carer from having to get into difficult positions when moving around the bed.

Whatever you decide, ensure that you have conducted proper research before ordering a hospital bed for your home. Try out different beds and see which one can suit. At the Adjustable Bed Factory, we have two beds within our homecare range that can be built for you and fully customised to suit your needs.

In addition to adjustable head and foot sections, the bed platform on some hospital beds can be raised and lowered vertically. This is an advantage if the patient will be looked after by a caregiver while lying in bed (for which a raised position is preferable), or who might fall out of bed in the night (for which a lowered position is preferable).

When looking for the best hospital beds for home use, you will need to consider:

• Whether the patient will use the bed independently or with help

• Whether the bed will be used temporarily or permanently

• The patient's height and weight

• The patient's specific abilities and limitations

• Any additional features required

Power Options: Manual, Semi-Electric, and Full-Electric

The way in which a hospital bed is powered affects the relative ease or difficulty of making adjustments as well as the price of a hospital bed rental or purchase. Manual beds are usually the most cost-effective type of hospital bed but require a caregiver with sufficient strength to operate a hand crank. Semi-electric and full-electric hospital beds come with a higher price tag but can be adjusted by the patient without help.

Manual Hospital Beds

Before the powered hospital bed was invented in 1945, manual hospital beds with hand cranks were the norm in hospitals around the United States. Like powered versions, a manual hospital bed has head and foot sections with hinges that can be raised and lowered independently of each other. Most manual beds can also be raised and lowered relative to the floor. In both cases, the angle or height of the bed is adjusted using a hand crank.

Best For...

A manual hospital bed could be right for you if you want to rent an adjustable bed temporarily and will have a strong caregiver to operate the cranks. This type of hospital bed could also be appropriate if the bed frame won't need to be adjusted often, such as if the bed is intended simply as a place to rest and read books in the afternoon.

If you want to learn more, please visit our website Pukang.

Semi-Electric Hospital Beds

Semi-electric beds typically use powered controls and a motor to adjust the head and foot sections of the bed frame and a manual crank to change the bed’s height. The controls are located on a handset. It's important to note that some semi-electric hospital beds are at a fixed height with head and foot sections that move but have no option to move the entire bed frame up or down.

Best For...

A semi-electric hospital bed is best for a patient who needs a bed that they can operate independently or whose caregiver isn't strong enough to operate hand cranks. In addition, the patient should also be mentally sound and unlikely to fall out of bed.

Full-Electric Hospital Beds

Full-electric hospital beds offer the same head and foot adjustability as semi-electric beds except that there are no manual cranks involved. A fully electric hospital bed can be adjusted at the head and feet and the entire bed frame can be moved up and down—all at the touch of a button. 

Some full-electric bed models allow the user to assume a Trendelenburg or reverse-Trendelenburg position with the entire body tilted either upward or downward. These positions can be helpful for patients with blood-flow issues and for those who struggle to get out of bed, but should only be used for a few minutes at a time and ideally under medical supervision.

Best For...

A full-electric hospital bed is best for people who will need a home hospital bed long-term, who receive assistance from a caregiver, or who need or prefer to operate the bed independently. While they represent a significant investment, these beds are the most practical both for caregivers and for patients who use a mobility device.

Specialty Hospital Beds

In addition to the three main types of hospital bed, there are two kinds of specialty beds that are typically of the full-electric variety.

Low Hospital Beds

Low hospital beds—when lowered completely—are designed to sit a mere foot off the floor. This can be ideal for patients with dementia who might try to climb over bed rails during the night and fall off. They can also be used to assist with a safe floor-to-stand transfer. Tall patients, however, will need to determine whether the height of a low hospital bed would make it difficult to stand up.

Bariatric Hospital Beds

For patients who need a higher weight capacity, a bariatric hospital bed might be best. Bariatric hospital beds are made with strong, reinforced materials such as steel for the base and come with a wider frame and mattress for comfort and support. Whereas a typical hospital bed has a weight capacity of 325 lbs, a bariatric hospital bed might have a weight capacity of 500 lbs.

Mattress Type

Mattresses for hospital beds are typically made from memory foam, latex, or a hybrid material and are usually around 6 inches thick. Whereas innerspring mattresses are common on regular beds, they would be too rigid to move with a hospital bed frame, which is why a foam mattress is used.

When looking for a medical mattress, look for one that's the right size for the bed frame and has a waterproof vinyl covering that's easy to clean and sanitize. For long-term use, use a pressure redistribution mattress or overlay to prevent the development of bed sores.

Accessories

Most hospital beds should come with handrails—either half or full—to prevent the patient from rolling out of bed. Some also come with a trapeze bar to help the patient change position or stand up and an over-bed table for eating in bed. If there's a particular accessory you value in a home hospital bed, be sure to ask the retailer whether the accessory is included or can be rented or purchased separately.

New vs. Used

People in the market for a home hospital bed usually have the choice of a rental bed, new hospital bed, or second-hand hospital bed (sold on websites such as eBay). If you are thinking of purchasing a hospital bed secondhand, it's important to be aware that the bed may be infected with disease or not working as it should. We generally recommend buying a new hospital bed for home use or renting one from a reputable company that thoroughly checks and cleans each bed before delivery.

FDA Entrapment Guidelines

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a set of hospital bed guidelines in March 2006 to reduce the risk of patient entrapment. While these are only guidelines and are not mandatory, it's in your best interest to look for a hospital bed that meets these guidelines and has been tested for safety.

Recommended Hospital Beds for Home Use

By now, you probably have some idea of the type of hospital bed that might be suitable for your situation. However, there are a few hospital beds that we particularly recommend and stock in our Denver, Colorado inventory.

Invacare Semi-Electric Hospital Bed

This is a sturdy hospital bed made from reinforced steel with riveted joints and washable, scratch-resistant bed panels. The hand pendant that contains the power controls is ergonomic with a water-resistant casing and a heavy-duty cord. Rubber casters protect the floor and other surfaces in the home from marks and prevent the wheels from slipping. Beds manufactured after August 1, 2007 meet the voluntary FDA guidelines for bed rail entrapment.

Specifications

• Size: Twin (80" x 36")

• Weight capacity: 325 lbs

• Height capacity: 6'5"

• Adjustments: Head and foot

• Mattress: Therapeutic foam

• Power: Electric

• Availability: Rental and sale

Transfer Master Supernal 3-Function

The Transfer Master Supernal 3-Function is a full-electric hospital bed with height, foot, and vertical adjustability. If you've been struggling to decide between a hospital bed vs. adjustable bed for long-term use, this model is the ideal choice—with the electronic components carefully hidden, the Supernal 3-Function looks like a traditional bed. 

In addition to all of the functions of a full-electric hospital bed (including a wide vertical height range), this hospital bed has:

• A range of massage settings

• A backlit wireless hand control

• Wall-hugging design for easy nightstand access

• European-style head tilt

• Emergency power-down function

Specifications

• Size: Twin (38″ x 80″), Full (53″ x 80″), Queen (60″ x 80″), and Dual King

• Weight capacity: 400 lbs or 500 lbs

• Height Capacity: 6'5"

• Adjustments: Head (65°), foot (35°), hi-low

• Mattress: Ascent Mattress (cloth or vinyl), Soft Touch Mattress (cloth or vinyl), Pressure Guard Mattress

• Power: Electric

• Availability: Purchase

• Extras: This hospital bed can be purchased with optional half rails (head only), bamboo rail covers, and battery backup.

Transfer Master Supernal 5-Function

If you're looking for the complete range of hospital-bed and adjustable functions with an elegant finish, the Transfer Master Supernal 5-Function has it all. This home hospital bed has all the features of the Transfer Master Supernal 3-Function plus Trendelenburg, reverse Trendelenburg, and cardiac chair positions. The top-of-the-range model that Transfer Master offers, this home hospital bed is both aesthetically beautiful and medically versatile. 

Specifications

• Size: Twin (38″ x 80″), Full (53″ x 80″), Queen (60″ x 80″), and Dual King

• Weight capacity: 300 lbs

• Height Capacity: 6'5"

• Adjustments: Head (65°), foot (35°), hi-low, Trendelenburg (10°) and reverse Trendelenburg (10°), cardiac chair

• Deck-to-floor height range: 12" – 24"

• Mattress: Ascent Mattress (cloth or vinyl), Soft Touch Mattress (cloth or vinyl), Pressure Guard Mattress

• Power: Electric

• Availability: Purchase

• Optional extras: half rails (head only), bamboo rail covers, cherry finish headboard, and battery backup

• Compatible with most low-profile Hoyer patient lift systems.

Comfort and Convenience Are Close at Hand

As we've seen, there is an excellent range of hospital beds for home use that come with a variety of features, functions, power options, positions, and styles. Determining what is the best hospital bed for home use in your case will ultimately depend on your timeline, medical needs, budget, and personal preference. 

For temporary use, the Invacare semi-electric hospital bed is a solid and cost-effective choice. For permanent use, it's hard to go past the Transfer Master series. With their stylish elegance, comfort, and full adjustability (not to mention built-in massage!), these beds are the clear winners in every respect.

Are you interested in learning more about electric hospital beds for sale? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!