How Electric Hospital Beds Improve Patient Care and Mobility

Many hospitalised patients need extra special care when they have trouble moving due to severe injuries or illnesses. That is why a growing number of hospitals are switching from manual hand-crank beds to full or semi-electric beds.

The difference between a fully electric bed and a semi-electric bed is simple. A fully electric bed allows you to raise or lower the entire bed with the push of a button, while a semi-electric bed only lets you raise or lower the head and foot sections. In most cases, any electric bed will make it much easier for nurses and doctors to treat patients with mobility issues.

Would you like to learn more about the benefits of electric hospital beds? Below are the top five ways that electric beds can improve patient care and mobility in a hospital setting.

1) Make it Easier for Patients to be Mobile

Patients often hate relying on nurses to help them get in and out of bed. For their psychological well-being, they want to remain as independent as possible while recovering from their injury or illness. That is where electric hospital beds can help.

Electric hospital beds make it so much easier for patients to get in and out of bed because they can push a button to adjust the height and position of the bed. Making such adjustments reduces the risk of falling accidents because the patients can move on or off the bed at a height and position that is just right for them.

For example, if a patient needs to sit up in bed before getting into their wheelchair, they can adjust the front height position of the bed to sit up automatically without any effort. That way, they can focus all their energy and effort on sliding into the wheelchair from the elevated position.

2) Makes Patients More Comfortable in Bed

Lying in bed can be just as uncomfortable as getting out of bed if patients cannot make the proper adjustments to the height and position of the bed. Electric beds can help make patients more comfortable in bed when they need to sleep, relax, eat, or drink.

Adjusting the elevation of the head and foot positions allows patients to find the best custom positions to stay comfortable. They don’t have to rely on nurses to manually adjust the head and foot sections to find the most comfortable positions because it can become never-ending agony for the patients. 

Patients often like to change their bed positions throughout the day and night. If they must call a nurse each time they want to change positions, it can make patients feel sad, insecure, and depressed. Electric beds prevent this from happening by allowing patients to have complete control over their comfort levels without the assistance of a nurse.

3) Help Prevent Ulcers and Sores on Patients

Immobile patients have the highest risk of developing ulcers in hospital beds because of their long-term lack of movement. Ulcers are painful and unsightly bedsores that form on the skin due to the pressure of lying down for too long. Patients often develop bedsores on their ankles, heels, tailbone, and hips.

Electric beds can prevent ulcers by allowing immobile patients to push a button to change positions and stay mobile. It doesn’t matter if a patient is not physically moving their own bodies, just as long as their bodies don’t stay lying down for extended periods. One push of the button can raise or lower any part of the patient’s body to increase blood circulation to that area and prevent ulcers from forming there. 

4) Allows Doctors and Nurses to Administer Treatments Faster

Doctors and nurses treat many different patients in hospitals, most of whom have severe injuries and illnesses. That means time is of the essence when it comes to treating each patient. Healthcare providers can only spend a little bit of time with one patient because they will have less time for the other patients they need to treat as well.

Electric beds help solve this problem because healthcare providers don’t have to spend as much time and energy adjusting each patient’s bed. Instead, they can push a button to quickly adjust the bed or let the patient do it themselves. That allows healthcare providers to spend more time treating patients by performing more thorough examinations, caregiving, and medical procedures.

5) Speeds up the Recovery Process for Patients

It is amazing how much faster a patient can recover from physical injuries when they are able to regularly elevate their legs, head, and body in bed. Electric beds allow patients to do this effortlessly, which helps them speed up their recovery in several different ways.

For instance, when a patient can raise their head in bed, they can improve their breathing and air circulation throughout their lungs. That is particularly important for patients to do if they suffer from respiratory conditions that make breathing difficult. Raising their head will expand their lungs to help reduce the symptoms of these respiratory conditions.

Elevating the leg position is also important to increase blood circulation to the legs, reduce swelling, and prevent the progression of deep vein thrombosis. Any patient who remains bedridden for too long will need to elevate their legs each day to prevent these leg-related issues from developing or worsening.

Teach Proper Patient Care with Simulated Medical Products

Do you manage a medical school where students must learn about proper patient care in a hospital setting? Teaching them how an electric hospital bed improves patient care is important, but there are still other medical accessories and simulators you must show them.

Pristine Medical is a vendor specialising in offering simulated medical products to help medical schools teach students how to care for patients without imposing any risk on them. Some of the bed-related medical products you can purchase from Pristine Medical include bedpans, electronic bed frames, bedsore model simulators, urinary drainage bags, and more. Choose whichever products correspond with your lesson plans to teach your students well.