Reading Skills for Healthcare Workers

The Importance of Making a Bed

Making a resident’s bed is an important and common task for nurse assistants in almost any healthcare setting. A correctly made bed has clean and dry sheets that do not have wrinkles or creases.  A correctly made bed will help to reduce pressure sores or bedsores.  A clean bed is a way to help with infection control.   

 

The supplies needed to make a bed in a healthcare facility include gloves, a mattress pad, and clean linens.  The clean linens used in most areas are a flat fitted sheet, a loose top sheet, and a pillowcase.  In addition, the nurse assistant may need to lower the bed and use the bed’s side rails if required by a resident’s care plan.

 

Nurse assistants should follow the health care facility’s schedule of making and changing beds. However, a bed needs to be changed whenever the linens become soiled or dirty.

 

There are two common types of beds to make: an open bed and a closed bed.  An open bed has the sheets and blankets down towards the foot end to allow the resident to get in easily.  A closed bed has the sheets and blankets pulled up to the top of the bed.  

 

It is important for a nurse assistant to remember to not place linens on the floor, allow them to touch a uniform, or shake them out. These actions may spread pathogens in the room.  The soiled linens must be placed into the soiled linen hamper.  

A clean and smooth bed provides comfort to the resident.  It also is a method of infection control to reduce pathogens that can lead to illness.

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