Hospital emergency codes
Encyclopedia
Hospital Emergency Codes are used in hospital
s worldwide to alert staff to various emergency situations. The use of codes is intended to convey essential information quickly and with a minimum of misunderstanding to staff, while preventing stress or panic among visitors to the hospital. These codes may be posted on placards throughout the hospital, or printed on employee/staff identification badges for ready reference.
Hospital emergency codes may denote different events at different hospitals, even nearby ones. Since many physicians have privileges at more than one facility, this may lead to confusion in emergencies, so uniform systems have been proposed.
or cardiac arrest
. When called overhead, the page takes the form of "Code Blue, (floor, (room)" to alert the resuscitation team where to respond. Every hospital, as a part of its disaster plans, sets a policy to determine which units provide personnel for code coverage. In theory any medical professional may respond to a code, but in practice the team makeup is limited to those with Advanced Cardiac Life Support
or other equivalent resuscitation training. Frequently these teams are staffed by emergency department
and intensive care unit
physicians, respiratory therapists, and nurses. At least one attending physician
must be in attendance on any code team; this individual is responsible for directing the resuscitation effort and is said to "run the code." This phrase was coined at Bethany Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas. The term "code" by itself is commonly used by medical professionals as a slang term for this type of emergency, as in "calling a code" or describing a patient in arrest as "coding".
e.g.: "Paging Doctor Firestone, third floor," to indicate a possible fire in the location specified.
Code Red. Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital
Code F
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
s worldwide to alert staff to various emergency situations. The use of codes is intended to convey essential information quickly and with a minimum of misunderstanding to staff, while preventing stress or panic among visitors to the hospital. These codes may be posted on placards throughout the hospital, or printed on employee/staff identification badges for ready reference.
Color code standardization
- AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
:- Australian hospitals and other buildings are covered by Australian Standard 4083 (1997) and many are in the process of changing to those standards.
- CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
:- The various emergency preparedness services of the health regions in Alberta have also begun to discuss standardization of their color code systems.
- United States of America:
- In 2000, the Hospital Association of Southern California (HASC) determined that a uniform code system is needed after "three persons were killed in a shooting incident at an area medical center after the wrong emergency code was called.While codes for fire (red) and medical emergency (blue) were similar in 90% of California hospitals queried, there were 47 different codes used for infant abduction and 61 for combative person. In light of this, HASC published a handbook titled "Healthcare Facility Emergency Codes: A Guide for Code Standardization" listing various codes and has strongly urged hospitals to voluntarily implement the revised codes.
- In 2003, MarylandMarylandMaryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
mandated that all acute hospitals in the state have uniform codes.
Cardiac arrest
"Code Blue" is generally used to indicate a patient requiring resuscitation or otherwise in need of immediate medical attention, most often as the result of a respiratory arrestRespiratory arrest
Respiratory arrest is the cessation of breathing. It is a medical emergency and it usually is related to or coincides with a cardiac arrest. Causes include opiate overdose, head injury, anaesthesia, tetanus, or drowning...
or cardiac arrest
Cardiac arrest
Cardiac arrest, is the cessation of normal circulation of the blood due to failure of the heart to contract effectively...
. When called overhead, the page takes the form of "Code Blue, (floor, (room)" to alert the resuscitation team where to respond. Every hospital, as a part of its disaster plans, sets a policy to determine which units provide personnel for code coverage. In theory any medical professional may respond to a code, but in practice the team makeup is limited to those with Advanced Cardiac Life Support
Advanced cardiac life support
Advanced cardiac life support or Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support refers to a set of clinical interventions for the urgent treatment of cardiac arrest and other life threatening medical emergencies, as well as the knowledge and skills to deploy those interventions.Extensive medical knowledge...
or other equivalent resuscitation training. Frequently these teams are staffed by emergency department
Emergency department
An emergency department , also known as accident & emergency , emergency room , emergency ward , or casualty department is a medical treatment facility specialising in acute care of patients who present without prior appointment, either by their own means or by ambulance...
and intensive care unit
Intensive Care Unit
thumb|220px|ICU roomAn intensive-care unit , critical-care unit , intensive-therapy unit/intensive-treatment unit is a specialized department in a hospital that provides intensive-care medicine...
physicians, respiratory therapists, and nurses. At least one attending physician
Attending physician
In the United States, an attending physician is a physician who has completed residency and practices medicine in a clinic or hospital, in the specialty learned during residency. An attending physician can supervise fellows, residents, and medical students...
must be in attendance on any code team; this individual is responsible for directing the resuscitation effort and is said to "run the code." This phrase was coined at Bethany Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas. The term "code" by itself is commonly used by medical professionals as a slang term for this type of emergency, as in "calling a code" or describing a patient in arrest as "coding".
-
- Australian Standard
- Californian Standard
Variations
- "Plan Blue" is used at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City to indicate arrival of a trauma patient so critically injured that even the short delay of a stop in the ER for evaluation could be fatal; the "Plan Blue" is called out to alert the surgeon on call to immediately proceed to the ER entrance and take the patient upstairs for immediate surgery. This was illustrated in an episode of Trauma: Life in the ER entitled "West Side Stories".
"Doctor" Codes
"Doctor" codes are often used in hospital settings for announcements over a general loudspeaker or paging system that might cause panic or endanger a patient's privacy. Most often, "Doctor" codes take the form of "Paging Dr. _____", where the doctor's "name" is a code word for a dangerous situation or a patient in crisis.e.g.: "Paging Doctor Firestone, third floor," to indicate a possible fire in the location specified.
Bomb threat
- Code Yellow: HASC
- Code 10: Stanford University Medical Center (old system), Scripps Healthcare San Diego
- Code Black: Markham Stouffville Hospital, University of Chicago Medical Center, Ohio State University Medical Center, Alberta, Quebec and Ontario hospitals.
- Code Blue: Some schools in Western New York and in schools in Volusia County, Florida
- Code 100: Heartland Regional Medical Center
- Code Purple: Australian Standard
- Code Orange: Oakwood Healthcare
- Code B: Superstition Mountain Mental Health Center (SMMHC, Inc.)
- Code Grey: Bronson Methodist Hospital
- Code Black: Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital
- Alert Blue: Health Partners Regions Hospital
- Code Black: Cheyenne Regional Medical Center
Child abduction/missing person
- Amber AlertAMBER AlertAn AMBER Alert or a Child Abduction Emergency is a child abduction alert bulletin in several countries throughout the world, issued upon the suspected abduction of a child, since 1996...
and Code AdamCode AdamCode Adam is a "missing child" safety program in the United States and Canada, originally created by Wal-Mart retail stores in 1994. It is named in memory of Adam Walsh, the 6-year-old son of John Walsh . Adam was abducted from a Sears department store in Florida in 1981 and was later found murdered...
, both well-known public announcements to denote missing or abducted children, have gained traction in hospital usage since 2000. - Code Pink can denote child abduction. Used at Carolinas Healthcare SystemCarolinas Healthcare SystemCarolinas HealthCare System is a hospital network located throughout North and South Carolina. About 90% of the hospitals affiliated with the system are located within a 75 mile radius of Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina...
in North CarolinaNorth CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, University of Texas Medical BranchUniversity of Texas Medical BranchThe University of Texas Medical Branch is a component of the University of Texas System located in Galveston, Texas, United States, about 50 miles southeast of Downtown Houston...
in Galveston, and Massachusetts General HospitalMassachusetts General HospitalMassachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts...
in BostonBostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
. - Code Purple was sometimes also used for Child Abduction
- Code Gold: Calgary Health RegionCalgary Health RegionCalgary Health Region was formerly the governing body for healthcare regulation in an area of the Canadian province of Alberta. It was amalgamated with other regional health authorities in 2008 to become part of Alberta Health Services...
- Code Amber: Alberta health regions
- Code Rainbow: University of California at Davis Medical Center
- Code Stork: Health Partners Regions Hospital
- Code Pink: Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital
- Code Pink: Cheyenne Regional Medical Center
- Code Black: Heartland Regional Medical Center
- Code Silver: Iowa Health Systems
Combative person/assault
- Code North: Stanford University Medical Center
- Code Grey: Combative Person with no weapon (HASC)
- Code Silver: Combative Person with a weapon (HASC)
- Code Black: Personal Attack (Australian Standard Code)
- Code White: Violent Patient (Markham Stouffville Hospital), Quebec and Ontario
- Code Atlas: Virginia Healthcare System
- Security Stat: Heartland Regional Medical Center
- "Mr. Strong" to (location), at other hospitals
- "Dr. Armstrong" to (location), at other hospitals
- Code Yellow: Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital
- Code Yellow: Cheyenne Regional Medical Center
- Yellow Alert: Health Partners Regions Hospital
Evacuation
- Code White: Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.
- Code Orange: Australian Standard.
- Code Green: Quebec and Ontario
Fire
- Usually Code Red.
- Australian Standard.
- California Standard.
- Sometimes Dr. Red, Dr. Pyro, or Dr. Firestone.
- Sometimes "Evacuation Bell"
Code Red. Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital
- Dr. Red Cheyenne Regional Medical Center
- Long Grass Health Partners Regions Hospital
Code F
- University of Michigan Hospitals
Internal disaster
- Code Green: Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.
- Code Grey: University Health Network, Toronto
- Code Yellow: Stanford University Medical Center (old system), Australian Standard
- Code TriageTriageTriage or ) is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition. This rations patient treatment efficiently when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately. The term comes from the French verb trier, meaning to separate,...
- Internal: HACS - Code Alert sometimes denotes disaster.
Lockdown/limited access
- Code Orange: OntarioOntarioOntario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
Used in Ontario hospitals to indicate an external disaster with mass casualties. Lockdown or controlled facility access is often used as part of the response. Volunteers, Families and Students were denied access during SARS Outbreak of 2003. - Code Red: Most commonly used by schools to indicate that a dangerous and/or harmful person is on campus.
Mass casualty incident
- Code Yellow: Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
- "MASCAL" may also be used
- Code 10, Code 20, or Code 99: Heartland Regional Medical Center
- Code Orange: Calgary Health RegionCalgary Health RegionCalgary Health Region was formerly the governing body for healthcare regulation in an area of the Canadian province of Alberta. It was amalgamated with other regional health authorities in 2008 to become part of Alberta Health Services...
, Quebec and Ontario - Code Triage: Scripps Healthcare San Diego; Hoag Hospital Newport Beach; Seton Medical Center, Daly City, California.
- Code 1000: Fletcher Allen Medical Center; Burlington, VT
- Code Orange: Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital
- Code Orange: Cheyenne Regional Medical Center
- Orange Alert: Health Partners Regions Hospital
Severe weather
- Code Brown: Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
- Code Black: Mercy Health Center (Oklahoma City)
- Code Gray: Cook Children's Medical Center, Fort Worth, TX; St. John's Regional Medical Center, Joplin, MO
- Code Yellow: Heartland Regional Medical Center
- Code Green: Schools in Volusia County, Florida
Theft/armed robbery
- Code Amber: Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
- Code Amber: New Jersey Hospital Association
Total divert
- A status sometimes called "Critical Care Bypass" (Ontario), "Total Divert", "triage situation", "Saturation Alert" or "High Occupancy" (University of Michigan Health System).
- Generally used by hospitals as a status indicator for EMS/ambulance services denoting that the issuing ER/trauma facility has reached maximum patient capacity and should not receive any more new patients if at all possible.
- A variation on "Total Divert", called "Bypass", is used at many U.S. hospitals to indicate emergency facilities at or over maximum capacity; this variation was featured in the "Road Warriors" episode of Trauma: Life in the E.R.. As explained by a trauma nurse in the episode, the status change does not always keep new patients from arriving.
- Can be denoted as Code Purple or Code Yellow in some hospitals.