A lot of patients sit in hospitals unable to move, and as such they develop tremendous bedsores and other problems. My grandmother lost a leg to this (and the resulting hospital-caught infection) many years ago. (Hospital-caught infection is the 4th largest cause of death in the USA, after heart disease, cancer and stroke.)

Today I saw one answer, a fancy bed that uses inflatable chambers in the bed to adjust the patient. Seems like a good plan, but the kicker is the bed costs $1000/day to rent. This bed is good in an ICU with a patient hooked up to tons of tubes and wires, but for the more stable stroke and paralysis patient, it seems there could be something much cheaper.

What about a U shaped bed with curved side walls that simply sits on a track with a geared motor that can rotate it left and right to flip a patient over? The U sides could be lowered by the hospital staff to remove the patient from the bed, though in fact the motor might also be able to turn the bed to roll the patient onto a gurney for transport.

Also handy would be cushions on a conveyer belt. Such patients, and I have known several, often move down the bed if the back is tilted up for them, and they have to be lifted and moved back up. This could also help. For many patients it could all be under their control, with safeguards of course to avoid going too far.

The value of being moved is well known, the problem is how to make it cheap enough so that all these patients can have it. Perhaps the inflatable concept can be made cheaper. Typical airbeds aren't that expensive and the principles are similar. Does being "medical grade" really jump the cost of the bed to $300,000?