When you think of hospital beds, you feel the melancholy of when you lay on a bed hoping to feel better enough to leave the hospital or sitting by your loved ones’ bedside hoping they get better enough to return to their lives. You also think of the comfort you felt when you or your loved ones were too tired and needed it the most. But what if hospital beds were not only comfortable, but also aesthetically pleasing, and functional in a way that increases patient safety and healing and reduces the stress levels of everyone involved including the doctors, nurses, patients, and loved ones?

Technological advancement has birthed the need for a complete makeover and upgrade of the obsolete hospital beds of yesterday in favor of SMART BEDS.

Medical equipment has been a consistent and integral part of healthcare and over the years, technology has led to an increase in the upgrade of these equipment. It has been many years since hospital beds have served one of the greatest purposes in health care; healing. There is no denying that hospital furniture provides a calming and healing aesthetic to the hospital environment.

Hospital beds offer warm hugs when patients need treatment and need to recuperate after medical intervention. This is why Smart bed’s makeover is necessary so they can provide that warm hug.

Smart beds, through extensive R&D, technological advancement, and industrial engineering, are innovated to make hospital comfort and recovery even better. Companies are creating smart beds to aid patient well-being by taking a more crucial role in their designs for medical staff efficiency and workload reduction.

Standard hospital beds have been slowly but efficiently transformed over the years to enhance that warm hug after medical treatment with innovative measures that prioritize safety, functionality, and aesthetics such as monitoring the patient’s vital signs with the presence of sensors that monitor movement on the bed and when getting out of it. Smart beds are equipped with automated features that adjust positioning and monitor vital signs, mobility function for patient movement, and more.

We will take a brief overview of some of the companies geared towards transforming the culture of global healthcare for the better with smart beds.

COMPANIES CREATING THE REVOLUTIONARY SMART BEDS

Stryker Corporation

Ably Medical

Favero Health Projects

Rotec International

Linet (Wissner-Bosserhoff)

Hill-Rom Holdings Inc.

Getinge (ArjoHuntleigh)

Paramount Bed Co. Ltd

Melten Company

Medik (Zhangjiagang Medi)

Stryker Corporation is a company specializing in manufacturing and developing various kinds of medical devices, ranging from medical implants to medical beds. Their head office is located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States, and was founded by Homer Stryker in 1941 and established in 1946.

Stryker Corporation launched the industry’s first completely wireless hospital bed in October 2020 called the ProCuity Bed Series. It was given the term “the Intelligent Bed” with its smart monitoring features and advanced fall prevention techniques. Stryker has launched its advancements with new creations including the InTouch critical care bed. 

The compelling part of the InTouch smart bed is that it possesses intuitive controls on all four sides, protocol reminders, spoken language translations, sound therapy, an intuitive touch screen interface using a powerful on-bed Windows computer, iBed Awareness to monitor local bed status information which alerts caregivers, visually, audibly and remotely if bed parameters are compromised, motorized mobility, data monitoring and more. The Stryker InTouch bed truly convinces anyone of its definition of being “smart”.

Ably Medical is a Norwegian startup with a mission to reimagine the hospital bed and the healthcare culture. Ably Medical seeks to integrate technology with patient care in not only meeting current healthcare demands, but also in adapting to the evolving landscape of global healthcare. Ably Medical’s smart ecosystem is designed to increase patients’ comfort and support healthcare providers.

Ably Medical has created an ecosystem that makes a hospital-revolutionized system that leverages artificial intelligence to provide safety and comfort. The data collected is used to adjust to specific patient needs and forms the basis for its learning capabilities. The ecosystem involves an innovative Sensory Mat discreetly placed under hospital beds that monitors vital signs and movement data without disturbing the patient. 

What is different and especially innovative about the Ably Sensory Mat is that this, in essence, can upgrade the average standard bed, to a smart bed with customizable alerts, detailed health trend analysis, and seamless EMR integration to other healthcare software applications.

Favero Health Projects manufactures and designs hospital equipment and healthcare furniture. The company aims to innovate solutions to define the new generation of equipment and integrated systems. It specializes in manufacturing and supplying equipment for hospitals, clinics, retirement homes, and healthcare communities Its headquarters is in Montebelluna, Treviso, Italy, and was founded in 1954. One of Favero’s leading smart beds is called the “Ingenious Hypercare”.

The Ingenious Hypercare smart bed is equipped with medical-certified sensors such as oxygen saturation, humidor sensor, heartbeat, breathing monitoring, temperature, and presence sensor.

It is different from the regular standard bed because it has a touch display integrated into the bed which displays the weight and physiological parameters of the patient, as well as centralized monitoring locally managed by the nursing control center, and remotely via a connectivity operating system in a constant and secure data flow, converted with the Medical Hl7® International Protocol.

Rotec International is a company that designs and manufactures high-quality medical and comfort beds. Rotec cis dedicated to building cutting-edge expertise to offer robust beds with unique characteristics, transforming simple rooms into a comfortable environment. Quebec, Canada, and was founded in 1985.

Rotec International has innovated the VersaTech 1100 ULB Bed, a groundbreaking solution set to redefine bariatric care with unparalleled innovation. It lowers to 8 inches off the ground while supporting a remarkable 1100 lbs (499 kg).

The VersaTech bed prioritizes mobility, autonomy, and safety for obese individuals. It is designed with an integrated scale, patient control integrated into the bed side rails, a nurse call system, bed exit detection system, and versatile adjustments, to ensure a comfortable experience for patients.

Linet is a bed manufacturing company that has sought to address the many aches and pains of the old medical beds. It began the development of its first product by cooperating with hundreds of nurses from 17 countries, from an old barn in 1990 to 4 modern production facilities and a global presence. In 2011, Linet formed a cooperation with Wissner-Bosserhoff and merged to form the Linet Group, committed to the business of high-quality innovative beds and medical furniture solutions. It is located in Dordrecht, Kingdom of the Netherlands, and was founded in 1990.

One of its latest smart bed innovations is the Eleganza 5 designed to maintain the vital signs of the patient and enable staff to treat the patient safely and with minimal effort. 

What makes the Eleganza 5 so unique is its smart features built and designed for comfort, turning, safety, mobilization, positioning, nursing, and communication. The Eleganza 5 has an iBoard control point for the staff which allows a central point visibility and patient monitoring right from a caregivers mobile phone. Its smart care solutions and mobility program is created to increase hospital operations efficiency.

Hill-Rom Holdings Inc. manufactures all kinds of technology and services related to the healthcare industry. They produce medical equipment for the healthcare industry and provide wound care and pulmonary and trauma management. Their main goal is to enhance outcomes for patients and caregivers. Hill-Rom Holdings Inc.’s headquarters is in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and was founded in 1915. They were, however, acquired by Baxter in 2021 with the goal to provide more opportunities for innovation and broader access to care globally.

Hill-Rom Holding has created a future-ready investment smart bed that evolves with the Centrella Platform and helps treat patient complications by continuously monitoring heart rate and respiratory rate. It has several advanced technologies which makes it one-of-a-kind. 

The Centrella Smart+ bed is specially equipped with the Hill-Rom ReadyConnect System which is a reliable, wireless connection from the Centrella Smart+ bed to Nurse Call. The installation is even as simple as plugging the bed’s power cable into the wall unit to automatically pair with the ReadyConnect system and establish a wireless Nurse Call Connection that allows the flow of data, alerts, and room controls.

Getinge (ArjoHuntleigh) is a leading name in the medical industry known for manufacturing medical equipment including hospital smart beds. Getinge’s goal is to address the difficulties of medical supplies and improve patients’ lives. The company began its journey in medical technology by producing sterilizers in 1932 and has become a well-known name in the medical industry since then. Getinge was formerly organized in three business areas: Getinge, focusing on infection control, ArjoHuntleigh on extended care, and Maquet, maker of surgical tables, until it started to operate as Getinge, a single-brand company. Its headquarters is in Gothenburg, Sweden and it was founded in 1904. Arjo was spun off as a publicly listed independent company in December 2017 and now operates independently of Getinge.

A popular Arjo smart bed is the Intensive care bed Enterprise® 9000X, made for high-dependency patients.

It has a patented profiling system, integrated weighing scale, bed exit alarm, and under-bed anti-entrapment sensors.

Paramount Bed Co. Ltd. is one of the leading hospital bed companies and is a holding company of a comprehensive medical group that manufactures and sells beds and equipment for medical and nursing care environments. They are focused on delivering smart beds and related solutions to improve the patient experience. Its head office is in Higashisuna, Koto-ku, Tokyo, and was founded in October 1982.

The Paramount Bed I-Care 2 series is built to maximize safety while effectively rehabilitating the patient back to health with minimal incidents.

It is equipped with digital scale features such as monitoring, memory, and weight pause function, side-rail anti-tampering features, and its angle specifications are built for a stable posture to sit or get off the bed.

Melten Company is a start-up developer of connected healthcare systems that endeavors to improve patient experience and recovery. Melten designs smart healthcare systems using the internet and blockchain technology to enable nurses and medical practitioners to enhance overall service quality and satisfaction. It is located in New Taipei City, Taiwan, and was founded in 2013.

The Melten bed tries to combine the IT industry with the medical environment to enhance the relationship between nurse and patient.

The smart bed includes features such as adjustable height and side rails, electronic controls connected to nearby devices, and comfort features to remotely control and adjust the bed.

Medik incorporated as Zhangjiagang Medi Medical Equipment Co. Ltd. has a mission to provide the most pertinent product and solution for the individual client with the best value. The company has been one of the largest manufacturers of hospital beds, patient stretchers, medical carts, and other related hospital furniture in China. It is located in Zhangjiagang- Shanghai, China, and was founded in 1995.

Medik’s medical bed YA-D7-3 is an innovative smart bed that possesses comprehensive features and functions to provide the patient with a comfortable and helpful environment, meanwhile improving the working efficiency of medical institutions.

It has embedded side railing controls, embedded touchscreen nurse control, head/foot panels, degree indicators, emergency stop buttons, battery backups, and more.