Stryker Hospital Beds Explained — and the Home Care Equivalent
Stryker hospital beds — and what actually works at home
People search for Stryker beds after a hospital stay, because that is the bed they remember. Those are intensive-care and acute-ward beds, built for hospitals rather than houses. Here is what they do, why they are not sold for home use, and which home care bed does the same job on the part that matters to you.
- Written for families, not procurement
- No sales pressure
- Honest about what we do not sell
First, the important part
Before you read any further.
We are not a Stryker dealer and we have no affiliation with Stryker Corporation. We cannot supply, service or source their beds, and we would rather say so at the top of the page than take a phone call under false pretences. This guide exists because the question comes up often and the honest answer is genuinely useful. Everything recommended further down is equipment we actually stock in our Surrey showroom.
What a Stryker bed actually is
Acute care equipment, designed around a nursing team rather than a household.
Stryker is one of the large medical technology manufacturers, and its bed division supplies hospitals rather than consumers. The current acute care range is sold under the ProCuity name and comes in three tiers, each aimed at a different ward:
| Model | Where it is used | What it is built around |
|---|---|---|
| ProCuity LEX | General and surgical wards | Fall prevention. Their lowest frame at 11.5 inches, with electric brakes. |
| ProCuity ZX | Wards that need to scale toward critical care | 14-inch low height plus a motorised drive wheel for moving patients between departments. |
| ProCuity ZMX | Intensive care | Pressure injury prevention and early mobility, paired with a powered air surface that turns and rotates the patient. |
If you saw one during a hospital stay in British Columbia, it was most likely a LEX or ZX on a general ward, or a ZMX if the stay was in intensive care.
These beds are engineered around problems that exist on a ward and largely do not exist in a house. A nurse covers several rooms at once, so the frame carries a weight-sensing bed exit alarm and a touchscreen that flags when the bed has been left in an unsafe configuration. Patients move between departments, so the ZX offers a motorised drive wheel to push the bed down a corridor with less staff. Clinical teams need daily weights, so there is a scale in the frame. The bed connects to the hospital's nurse call system and electronic records. Stryker's matching support surfaces are gel or air-powered, with alternating pressure modes for patients who cannot turn themselves.
All of that is real engineering solving real problems. None of it is aimed at a family caring for someone in a spare room. You can read Stryker's own specifications on their site if you want the full picture.
The one number that actually matters at home
How low the bed goes — because that is what decides whether a fall causes an injury.
Most falls in hospital happen in the patient's own room, near the bed, while nobody is assisting. That is why the headline feature on Stryker's newest ward bed is not the touchscreen or the connectivity — it is height. Their LEX model lowers to 11.5 inches, and it is marketed on exactly that.
The same logic applies in a bedroom in Surrey, and here is the part worth knowing: a low-height home care bed does the same thing. Ours lowers to roughly 9 to 11 inches. Lowering the sleeping surface shortens the distance of any fall and lets the feet reach the floor when someone sits on the edge of the bed — which is the whole reason hospitals specify low frames in the first place.
On the feature that carries the most weight outside a hospital, you are not compromising by buying a home care bed. You are simply skipping the ward equipment you have no use for.
Side by side, on the specs that matter
Stryker figures are from their published ProCuity specifications. Ours are from our own product pages.
| Specification | Stryker ProCuity LEX (ward) | Drive Low-Height (home) |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest height | 11.5" (29.2 cm) | 9–11" — as low or lower |
| Frame width | 42" (106.7 cm) | 36" — fits a standard mattress and a normal bedroom |
| Overall length | 90.25" retracted, up to 104.25" extended | 80", with an optional extension kit for taller users |
| Head, foot and height adjustment | Yes, electric | Yes, electric — all three from a hand pendant |
| Power failure backup | Battery backup | Manual emergency crank |
| Works with a patient lift | Yes | Yes — height adjusts for floor and ceiling lifts |
| Pressure care surface | Gel or air-powered, with alternating pressure modes | Compatible with foam, alternating pressure and low-air-loss mattresses |
| Bed exit alarm, scale, nurse call, motorised drive | Standard | Not fitted — and not needed in a house |
| Available to a private buyer in BC | No | Yes — to buy or rent |
For reference, the ICU model is bigger again: the ProCuity ZMX is 42 inches wide, 93 inches long retracted and 107 inches extended, and its lowest height is 14 inches. It is the largest bed in the range and the least suited to a house.
Read down that table and the picture is clear. The two things a household actually needs — a bed that lowers far enough to make a fall survivable, and full electric positioning — you can have. What you give up is a scale, a corridor drive wheel and a link to a nurse call system, none of which do anything in a bedroom.
Why hospital beds are not sold for home use
Five practical reasons, before anyone spends money finding out.
- Price. Acute care beds are capital equipment bought on hospital budgets and group purchasing contracts. A single intensive care bed with its powered surface can cost more than a car. A home care bed that does what a family actually needs starts in the low thousands.
- Size and weight. They are built for hospital corridors and service lifts, not for the turn at the top of a staircase or a bedroom door in a 1970s Surrey rancher. Home care beds come apart to get into the room and reassemble inside it.
- Service. Hospital beds are maintained under manufacturer contracts by trained biomedical technicians, with parts supplied through the manufacturer. There is no consumer service channel. When something fails at home, you are on your own.
- Features nobody needs at home. Powered drive wheels, nurse call integration, a built-in scale and CPR release are all valuable on a ward. In a bedroom they are cost and complexity with no benefit.
- It looks like a hospital. This one gets dismissed and it should not be. Someone recovering at home is usually there precisely because home is not a hospital. A low-profile home care bed keeps a bedroom feeling like a bedroom.
Hospital feature, home equivalent
The clinical reason each feature exists, and what does the same job in a house.
| Hospital bed feature | Why it exists on a ward | What does the job at home |
|---|---|---|
| Ultra-low height | Falls getting in and out of bed are one of the most common ways patients are injured in hospital. Dropping the deck close to the floor means the feet reach the ground and any fall is a short one. | The feature most worth carrying home, and it is available. Our Drive Full Electric Low-Height Hospital Bed lowers for exactly this reason. |
| Pressure redistribution surface | Someone who cannot reposition themselves develops pressure injuries, which are painful, slow to heal and largely preventable. Critical care surfaces actively redistribute load. | At home the equivalent is a proper pressure redistribution mattress rather than a household one. The Gravity 9 is our standard recommendation. |
| Head, knee and height articulation | Sitting a patient up for meals, breathing and conversation, and raising the deck so staff are not bending over it. | Full-electric home care beds do all of this from a handset. It is the single biggest quality-of-life difference over an ordinary bed. |
| Bariatric width and capacity | Standard frames are neither safe nor comfortable above a certain weight, so wards keep wider, higher-capacity beds available. | The Lightweight Bariatric Full Electric Bed with a bariatric foam mattress covers this at home. |
| Powered patient turning and transfer | Moving a patient who cannot bear weight is a leading cause of back injury among nursing staff, so hospitals mechanise it. | At home that risk transfers to a spouse or an adult child. A floor lift is what protects them. |
| Bedside table on an arm | Meals, medication and a call bell within reach of someone who cannot get up. | An overbed table rolls over the bed and does the same thing for a fraction of the cost. |
| Bathroom a few steps away | A hospital room has an ensuite and staff on hand to assist with getting there. | Most homes do not, especially when the bed is downstairs and the bathroom is not. A bedside commode is usually the honest answer. |
| Fluid-resistant surfaces and industrial laundry | Hospitals wipe everything down and send linen out by the trolley-load. | At home, washable bed pads protect the mattress underneath and save an enormous amount of work. |
| Bed exit alarms, nurse call, built-in scale, powered drive | A nurse covers several rooms and patients travel between departments. These features exist because staff cannot be everywhere at once. | No home equivalent, and none needed. In a house someone is nearby, the bed does not travel, and weights are taken at appointments. |
If pressure injuries are the real worry, spend the money on the mattress
This is the one ICU capability that genuinely translates to home care — and it is not the bed frame.
Stryker's intensive care bed is not sold on its frame. It is sold on what sits on top of it: a powered air surface that redistributes pressure, adjusts to the patient's weight and position, moves air across the skin to manage moisture, and slowly rotates the patient from side to side so they are not resting on the same tissue for hours. In an ICU, where patients cannot move themselves for days at a time, that is the difference between skin staying intact and a wound that takes months to heal.
Here is the useful part for a family. That capability lives in the mattress, not the frame. A powered pressure-relief mattress works on a standard home care bed. So if the person you are caring for spends most of the day in bed and cannot reposition themselves without help, the mattress is where the budget should go first — well before any feature of the frame.
If the person can still shift their own weight and gets out of bed daily, a quality foam redistribution mattress like the Gravity 9 is usually enough. If they cannot reposition themselves, are in bed most of the day, or already have a stage one or two pressure area, ask us about an alternating pressure or low-air-loss mattress instead — these use a pump to change which parts of the body carry load, and they fit our home care beds. Tell us what the skin looks like now and how much the person moves, and we will tell you which side of that line you are on. If there is already an open wound, that is a conversation for a wound care nurse or an occupational therapist, and we will say so.
What we stock for home care
Everything below is in our Surrey showroom. Beds and mattresses are available to rent as well as buy.
Drive Full Electric Low-Height Hospital Bed
Full electric head, foot and height adjustment, and it lowers close to the floor for the same fall-prevention reason hospitals do it. Comes apart to get through a standard doorway.
View details ›
Lightweight Bariatric Full Electric Bed
A wider, higher-capacity frame for anyone a standard home care bed will not safely or comfortably support — without the weight of an institutional bariatric frame.
View details ›
Gravity 9 Pressure Redistribution Mattress
Layered foam built for long-term care, where someone spends most of the day in bed. The mattress matters as much as the frame — an ordinary one defeats the point of the bed.
View details ›
Bariatric High-Density Foam Mattress
42" x 80" high-density foam, sized and rated to match a bariatric frame. Pairs with the bariatric bed above.
View details ›
Drive LEVANTAR Floor Lift
500 lb capacity. If the person cannot bear weight, this is what stops whoever cares for them injuring their own back — the most overlooked purchase in home care.
View details ›
Airway 3-in-1 Commode Chair
Bedside commode, raised toilet seat or shower chair. The usual answer when the bed is on the ground floor and the only bathroom is not.
View details ›
Drive Overbed Table
Adjustable height, rolls over the bed on a C-base. Meals, medication, reading and a phone within reach without anyone having to fetch them.
View details ›
Washable Incontinence Bed Pads
Reusable and waterproof, in three sizes. Protects the mattress underneath and cuts the laundry down to something manageable.
View details ›
Rent a home care bed
For a recovery with an end date — surgery, a fracture, a few months of care — renting is usually the sensible choice. Delivery, setup and collection included.
See rentals ›Frequently asked questions
Hospital beds, home beds, and the difference between them.
Can I buy a Stryker bed for my home?
Not from us, and realistically not from anyone as a private buyer. Stryker sells acute care beds to hospitals and health authorities through direct sales and group purchasing agreements. Decommissioned units occasionally surface through liquidators, but they arrive with no warranty, no service path and no parts supply, and they are built to a size and weight that assumes a hospital corridor. We would not recommend it.
I have seen other websites selling a "Stryker home care bed" — is that real?
Treat those listings with caution. Check whether the seller names a specific model that appears in the manufacturer's own catalogue, and whether they are named anywhere as an authorised dealer. A generic bed listed under a well-known brand name is a common way of catching search traffic, and you would be buying something other than what the page implies.
What is the closest thing to a hospital bed I can actually have at home?
A full-electric low-height home care bed with a pressure redistribution mattress. That pairing covers the two features that genuinely matter outside a hospital: safe height adjustment with fall protection, and a surface that protects the skin of someone spending most of the day in bed. Everything else on an acute bed solves a staffing problem you do not have at home.
The hospital had a bed that turned my father automatically. Can I get that at home?
Not the bed, but you can get the function. Automatic turning and lateral rotation come from a powered air mattress rather than the frame, and powered pressure-relief surfaces are made for home care beds. If someone cannot reposition themselves, that is the single most valuable thing to add to a home setup. Call us and describe how much the person can move on their own and what their skin looks like, and we will point you at the right type of surface.
Should I rent or buy?
Rent when there is an end date — a surgery, a fracture, a defined recovery. Buy when care is ongoing with no clear finish, because past roughly six months the rental total overtakes the purchase price. We will tell you which side of that line you are on rather than let a rental run indefinitely.
Will the bed fit through my door and up my stairs?
Home care beds are designed to come apart for exactly this, and our team assembles them in the room where they will be used. Tell us when you call if there are steps at the entrance, a tight turn at the top of a staircase or a narrow hallway, and we will bring the right people rather than discover it at the door.
Does MSP cover a hospital bed in BC?
MSP generally does not fund home medical equipment. Funding usually comes through Ministry programs (BCEA/PWD), extended health plans, ICBC or WorkSafeBC depending on the situation, and Ministry funding normally requires a prescription and pre-approval before purchase. We can prepare the documentation and quotes those applications ask for.
Setting up home care across the Lower Mainland
Delivery, assembly in the room, and a walkthrough of how everything works.
Not sure which bed is right? Describe the situation.
Tell us who the bed is for, how mobile they are and which room it is going in. We will tell you what actually fits — including when the answer is cheaper than the one you asked about.
- Showroom: 12987 80 Ave, Surrey, BC V3W 3B1
- 604-240-2450
- info@mustmedical.ca
- Open 24 hours, 7 days a week
Stryker and ProCuity are trademarks of Stryker Corporation. Must Medical Equipment is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or an authorised dealer for Stryker Corporation, and does not sell or service Stryker products. Those names are used here only to describe and compare equipment for readers researching hospital beds. This page is general information, not medical advice — for guidance about a specific person's care needs, speak with their physician, occupational therapist or discharge planner.