Today our topic of discussion is Emergency and Safety Codes.
Emergency and Safety Codes
Hospital emergency codes are coded messages often announced over a public address system of a hospital to alert staff to various classes of on-site emergencies. The use of codes is intended to convey essential information quickly and with minimal misunderstanding to staff while preventing stress and panic among visitors to the hospital.
Such codes are sometimes posted on placards throughout the hospital or are printed on employee identification badges for ready reference. Hospital emergency codes have often varied widely by location, even between hospitals in the same community.
Confusion over these codes has led to the proposal for and sometimes adoption of standardized codes. In many American, Canadian, and Australian hospitals, for example “code blue” indicates a patient has entered cardiac arrest, while “code red” indicates that a fire has broken out somewhere in the hospital facility.
Code blue: Heart or respiration stops (An adult, child, or infant’s heart has stopped or they are not breathing).
Code red: Fire.
Code orange: Hazardous spills (A hazardous material spill or release; unsafe exposure to spill).
Code silver: Weapon or hostage situation.
Code gray: Combative person (Combative or abusive behavior by patients, families, visitors, staff or physicians) If a weapon is involved “CODE SILVER” should be called.
Amber alert:Infant/child abduction.
Internal triage: Internal emergency (Internal emergency in multiple departments including: Bomb or bomb threat; Computer network down; Major plumbing problems; and Power or telephone outage).
External triage: External disaster (External emergencies impacting hospital including: Mass casualties; Severe weather; Massive power outages; and Nuclear, biological, and chemical accidents).
Rapid response team: Medical team needed at bedside (A patient’s medical condition is declining and needs an emergency medical team at the bedside). Code Clear: Announced when emergency is over.
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