Hospital furniture is an integral part of an efficient healthcare facility. Without essential furniture, any hospital or healthcare facility cannot function. To build a competent healthcare facility, you need ergonomic and efficient furniture. The once healthcare furniture with simplistic designs and features is now more ergonomic and designed for optimal functionality.
Modern healthcare furniture is designed to provide a better experience to patients while ensuring their comfort and safety. But, with such an extensive range of hospital furniture, what does your healthcare facility need? You can’t equip your hospital with everything. Read along to learn the essential hospital furniture to have to build a competent and patient-centric healthcare facility.
Essential Hospital Furniture
There are essential furniture pieces every efficient healthcare facility needs and can’t function without. Let’s explore the types of essential hospital furniture:
Hospital Beds
Hospital beds are specialised beds designed specifically for healthcare facilities. Designed for various treatment purposes, hospital beds come in a variety of types. The popular types of hospital beds are:
Fowler Bed
A Fowler bed is designed with four specific perforated sections to allow different positions for the patients. The name is popularly associated with the Fowler position. This medical position refers to the patient sitting straight in the bed with their knees straight or bent. There are different variations of Fowler position, such as high Fowler referring to a 90-degree sitting angle, a semi-fowler referring to a 30 to 45-degree sitting angle and low Fowler with just a minimal elevation of the patient’s head.
Fowler beds come with motors and cranks for seamless position adjustments, ABS steel head and foot panels and collapsible side rails. They are equipped with a central or individual braking system for fixed positioning. Fowler beds offer effortless functions for the backrest, headrest and knee rest adjustments. Depending on their scope of functionality and specifications, the medical bed price of fowler beds can vary. These medical beds are effective for postpartum women needing uterine drainage, immobile patients or patients with mobility issues who experience respiratory distress or patients who need nasal feeding tubes or are at risk of aspiration.
Semi Fowler Bed
A semi-fowler bed is specifically designed for the semi-fowler position, i.e. a position where the patient’s head and torso can be elevated to a 15 to 45-degree angle as they lie on their back. It offers a smaller elevation angle in comparison to a Fowler bed. However, it can have functions to raise the foot of the bed or option to bend the knees. Like Fowler beds, semi-fowler beds are beneficial for patients who have respiratory or cardiac conditions requiring attachment of a nasogastric tube or require lung expansion.
Semi-fowler beds are also helpful in providing extra comfort for women during labour or childbirth. Like Fowler beds, semi-fowler beds also come with steel or ABS head and foot panels. They are equipped with cranks or motors for convenient adjustments. Depending on the functions and features, the semi-fowler medical bed price can vary.
Electric Medical Bed
Electric beds are electrically or remote-operated medical beds offering upper and lower body adjustable positions and height adjustments. They are suitable for patients with varied medical conditions to enable sleeping in various positions as per their comfort. Certain patients can’t sleep in a certain position, experiencing discomfort due to surgery or medical conditions; for such patients, electric beds can be adjusted to ensure their body is in a comfortable position. Electric beds are also helpful in providing relief to patients having swelling, arthritis, chronic pain, respiratory issues, or limited mobility.
These medical beds have specific vital features such as electrically-operated collapsible rail guards, multiple position adjustments, detachable heads or/and footboards, swivel castors and compatibility with a hospital mattress. As these beds can be operated and controlled through an electric mechanism, they are suitable for various medical settings, including hospitals, home care, rehabilitation centres, and nursing homes. As an electric bed uses advanced technology to offer superior patient comfort and safety, this patient bed price is high compared to other standard medical beds.
Manual Medical Bed
Manual beds are the most common hospital beds. These medical beds are operated through hand cranks for adjusting height or raising the head or foot of the bed. These beds are suited for patients who require minimal position change. Therefore, this patient bed price is affordable and cost-effective for any healthcare facility. Due to this economic patient bed price, these beds are popular as a budget-friendly alternative to electric beds.
Motorised Medical Bed
Motorised hospital beds are designed with motorised height and position adjustment features for the convenience of the patients. These hospital beds come equipped with removal rail guards for enhanced safety. With the facility of elevating head and foot sections, these beds facilitate easy mobility for patients to sit or stand. Some motorised hospital beds come with lockable wheels to ensure safety and easy movement. Specific motorised medical bed designs are compatible with a hospital mattress to provide enhanced comfort.
Hospital Chairs
Hospital chairs are another essential hospital furniture piece. A hospital chair is everywhere in the hospital, from the reception area to the patient's room and from the consulting room to the ER room. Along with patients and doctors, the hospital chair is also an essential hospital staff furniture. As per their location and purpose, hospital chairs are of various types. The most common being doctors and patients’ chairs used by doctors and patients to sit. Here are the other essential hospital chairs:
- Wheel Chair- Wheelchairs are the most commonly visible hospital chairs. They are necessary to transfer and assist patients with mobility issues.
- Dental Chair – Dental chairs, as the name suggests, are for dental patients. Dentists use these chairs to administer dental procedures. Hence, they come equipped with various features designed explicitly for dental treatment.
- Recliner Chair- Recliner chairs are chairs with position adjustment and armrest features. These are helpful for patients to sit comfortably with the back tilted or the footrest extended. Some recliners are also for specific treatment purposes to ensure patients sit for extended treatment duration in optimal comfort, such as dialysis chairs.
- Revolving Stool – Revolving stools are used in consulting rooms for patients. Doctors can examine patients more conveniently when they sit on a revolving stool. A revolving stool enables the patient to turn quickly when asked.
- Step Chair- Step chairs are for facilitating the up-and-down transfer of patients through staircases or narrow spaces.
Hospital Tables
Hospital tables are another hospital essential. They serve a multitude of purposes for treatment and support for the doctors, hospital staff and patients. Some of the essential hospital tables are:
- Examination Table- An examination table for clinic is required for all doctors or consultation rooms in the hospital. This examination table for clinic assists the doctors in examining patients properly.
- Delivery Table- A delivery table is a hospital table used explicitly for pregnant women during childbirth.
- Operation Table- An operation table, as the name suggests, is a hospital table used for operations or surgeries. This hospital table is designed with a narrow width to facilitate doctors and healthcare professionals to stand on both sides to reduce during surgeries.
- Bedside Table- A bedside table is used for keeping patient’s medicines and belongings in a patient room. It is usually of a H-shape or a U-shape and has shelves and drawers. Sometimes, a bedside table can come with a small locker or storage locker to keep a patient's valuables.
- Overbed Table- An overbed table is a patient room essential. It is used for giving meals or medicines to patients in bed.
Hospital Trolleys/Carts
Hospitals can only function efficiently with trolleys and carts. Trolleys and carts are used for various functions, such as transporting medicines, equipment, supplies, or meals. There are two types of essential trolleys in hospitals:
- Mayo Trolley- A Mayo trolley is a hospital trolley used in an operation theatre. It can carry all surgical equipment. A Mayo trolley is usually made of surgical steel for optimal hygiene of instruments.
- Dressing Trolley- A Dressing trolley is a hospital trolley used for carrying and storing medicines and medical equipment. Depending on the purpose, a dressing trolley can be for emergencies, regular dressing usage or for a specific purpose.
Hospital Staff Furniture
Along with doctors and patients, hospital staff furniture is also essential to the hospital. The common staff furniture includes chairs and tables for the staff to facilitate their working. Depending on the size and requirements of your healthcare facility, hospital staff furniture can consist of beds in addition to chairs and tables. Another piece of staff furniture essential in hospitals is staff lockers. Hospital staff, when working, need lockers to keep their belongings. Lockers are also required to organise patient treatment files and other official documents. So, you can get lockers for the office and doctor's rooms. For the staff room, a storage locker with small locker designs to provide storage space for all employees in one place is efficient and space-saving.