So just wanted to get some thoughts from other people here. The hospital I work for has just announced that they will no longer overhead page code blue's with the room number. Instead (as is currently in place) a pager (beeper) system will be used to alert people to respond.
Does anyone else work in a place that does this? I think the main reasons cited for the change are pt/families concerns with the anxiety of thinking it is their family member and also HIPPA violations. I don't really see much case for the HIPPA violation and I think doing it to appease families is the wrong reason.
Here's my biggest concern. FIrst off my floor is split on 2 wings and without an overhead page people on one wing would be clueless to what is going on with the other side, meaning less help to get there within the first 10-20 seconds. Secondly, and sort of inline with my first concern is that the studies show that if someone is VF or VT that if they can be shocked within 2 minutes as opposed to even 5 minutes, the outcome is drastically improved. I guarantee it takes longer than 2 minutes (even on our telemetry floor) to notice someone is in a lethal rhythm and to sound the code, have the paging system go off, and for people to get to the floor from other floors.
At least with the overhead page, you can get the experienced floor personel to the room quickly and can get to patient prepped with the pads and start analyzing the rhythm to get them shocked asap if need be.
I don't know. I don't think anyone likes the idea, including the docs I"ve talked to. What do you guys think?