Selection guide

How to Specify an Electric Hospital Bed

A hospital bed datasheet has dozens of rows, but only six of them decide whether you bought the right bed. This guide covers how to read those specifications and the standards behind them. It makes no clinical performance claims.

Open any item for detail. 8 in total.

1. Start with the care setting

The setting determines every specification that follows. Buying an ICU configuration for a general ward wastes budget; buying a general-ward bed for acute care leaves you without the functions you need.

Setting	Typical requirement	Series
General ward	Three-section electric, side rails, basic braking	MEB-903
Intensive care	Four-section, Trendelenburg, central braking, nurse control panel	MEB-904ICU
Paediatric	Raised rails, smaller platform	MET-6600P

2. Motor count decides what the bed can do

The row most often skipped, and the one that matters most. Three motors versus four is not about speed — it is whether the bed can do Trendelenburg at all.

Three motors: backrest, knee section, overall height. This is the MEB-903.
Four motors: adds whole-frame tilt, giving Trendelenburg and reverse Trendelenburg at ±12°. This is the MEB-904.

If the bed might later move to acute care or post-operative recovery, decide this now. Motor count is fixed at manufacture and cannot be retrofitted.

3. Read the SWL, not the look of the frame

Safe Working Load is the combined weight of patient, mattress and every accessory — not a patient weight limit. Deduct the mattress (8–15 kg) and anything you hang on the bed, such as IV poles or infusion pumps.

Series	SWL	Practical margin
MEB-903	200 kg	approx. 180 kg
MEB-904	250 kg	approx. 230 kg

Our beds are load tested to EN 1970.

4. Side rails and IEC 60601-2-52 entrapment protection

IEC 60601-2-52 is the particular standard for medical beds, and its most important provision is entrapment protection — maximum permitted gaps between rail and platform, and between rail elements, so that limbs, head or neck cannot become trapped.

Two things are worth confirming at tender stage: whether the bed meets the current edition (compliance with the older EN 1970 alone is not the same thing), and how the rail is operated. A one-handed release that auto-locks behaves very differently from a two-handed design when the unit is short staffed.

5. Platform material: steel or PP

	Steel	PP (engineering plastic)
Cleaning	Watch for coating wear	Sections lift out for washing
X-ray	Needs a cassette tray	Translucent on some models
Weight	Heavier	Lighter to manoeuvre
Height range	440–750 mm	450–760 mm

The height difference comes from structural depth. Ten millimetres sounds trivial, but for units running low-bed fall precautions it is not.

6. Castors and braking: diagonal or central

Diagonal brake: locks two opposite wheels. Lower cost, fine where beds rarely move.
Central locking: one pedal locks all four, with pedals on every side. The difference shows in acute and emergency settings.

Castor diameter matters too — 125 mm is the common hospital-bed size, and it governs how smoothly the bed clears thresholds and lift gaps.

7. What happens in a power cut

Manual crank: lowers the backrest by hand. This is the MEB-903M.
Backup battery: keeps powered movement available for a period. Optional.
Manual CPR release: a single-handed lever that flattens the backrest instantly. Unrelated to power supply, but part of the same safety group.

8. Confirm the option list before ordering

Most of the following are available as options, but not on every model. Check before you order: X-ray cassette, IV pole and socket, lifting pole, bed extension, weighing scale, under-bed lighting, Balkan frame.

Still deciding?

If you already know the model, send us the model and quantity for a quote. If you are still evaluating, the catalogue download area has full specifications and dimensional drawings, or browse the nine product categories. All products are made at our own plant in Taiwan under an ISO 13485 certified quality management system.