Code Blue Systems

[WillowNMe]

I am interested in hearing what other hospitals use to communicate Code Blues. I did a search on AllNurses and found older conversations about overhead pages --- and those were from 2001!

Currently, my hospital uses a pager system with an overhead page, "Code Blue Floor#". I am trying to find a couple of different systems to introduce to my managers that are quicker and more accurate.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Overhead announcement with the floor. Code team (ICU nurses, anesthesia, resident, intensivist, etc.) all have text pagers that specify the room number. For the departments that handle their codes without the house code team (ER, periop), there's a code blue button that does an automatic overhead page just within the department, although not all of the ORs have been remodeled with this feature and have to call a number for the department overhead page.

[MunoRN, RN]

Within the floor/unit where the code blue is located there is an arrhythmia-inducing alarm and an "all page" is called to the specific room. We use an overhead page throughout the hospital with the name of the floor/unit.

[vanilla bean]

My facility uses pagers and overhead announcements. The pagers definitely have a lag time and if I'm elbow deep in something when it goes off, it's usually ignored momentarily until I have a clean hand.

Some of our code team members also carry facility wifi phones, but the problem with needing a free/clean hand exists with those as well (at least the ones we use), and they are not presently used to alert responders about codes.

I can't imagine how anything would be quicker or more accurate than having the location announced overhead by the operator - they can immediately transmit the message once they receive it, and it allows everyone that needs to be alerted to receive the same information at the same time.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Each patient room has a 'code blue' button on one of the walls. If pressed, a special alarm will ring throughout the hospital to signal that a code is in progress. Someone uses the overhead paging system to inform staff of the location.

[loriangel14, RN]

We have a button on the wall. Wghen you push the code and room number are paged overhead. Evryone that can cmes.

[calivianya, BSN, RN]

Most of the places I've worked had a code button in the room. At one of the hospitals, pushing that button immediately opened a line to the unit secretary desk as well as turning the light outside the room to flashing blue, so the secretary could ask if it was real. If it was, the secretary let the operator know, who announced code blue and the unit number.

At my current place, the code blue button immediately notifies the operator, who announces it right away. The light flashes blue outside of the room as soon as it's pressed. This results in a "Cancel code blue, __ unit, cancel code blue, __ unit" being called fairly often as there is no way to let the operator know hitting the button was an accident.

One of the rural, critical access hospitals I worked at PRN did not have a code system, and it was a small enough ICU that it could occasionally be staffed by one person. If I was working alone and my patient coded, I was expected to call the med/surg floor for backup, call the house supervisor, and call the physician myself - I guess while doing chest compressions with one hand, haha. It made me grateful for any code system at all. Fortunately, the only ones to die on me there were DNRs so I never had to go through the hassle of putting a team together to help me code a patient.

[Karou]

We push a code button in the patients room that causes an alarm and lights to go off on the unit. There is an automatic page overhead hospital wide with the unit location and the code team gets paged on beepers with the room number.

[Aurora77]

Where I work now there are buttons in each room that, when pushed, give an automatic overhead page with the unit and room number. At my old job, we did the paging overhead from any phone.

[K+MgSO4, BSN]

Our exec had been discussing stopping the overhead pages that happen suring the day, and just going with pagers. However there are black holes in the internal lan paging system due to construction and the basement where HIS is. Overnight no clinical staff are allowed in HIS so they rely on the lan pagers. Code blue or MET call goes to the response team and parent unit, all the porters wgo either all turn up or not at all and the night nurse in charge and flow manager. I have done that job and sometimes if there was enough clinical staff in the code I would float around answeing call lights wtc.

[ohiobobcat]

We don't have pagers or phones that we carry with us, so it gets announced as an overhead "Code blue *location*". We never overhead paged codes in the ER. Everywhere else in the hospital does though.

I imagine the call light system on the inpatient side has some way to indicate a need for help. I couldn't tell you what that is though, and I know our switchboard announces all codes.

[suga_junkie, BSN, RN]

Our exec had been discussing stopping the overhead pages that happen suring the day, and just going with pagers. However there are black holes in the internal lan paging system due to construction and the basement where HIS is. Overnight no clinical staff are allowed in HIS so they rely on the lan pagers. Code blue or MET call goes to the response team and parent unit, all the porters wgo either all turn up or not at all and the night nurse in charge and flow manager. I have done that job and sometimes if there was enough clinical staff in the code I would float around answeing call lights wtc.

Our hospital doesn't do overhead pages. We press the emergency bell to alert ward staff, someone calls the emergency line and this sends pages to the MET call team (in ICU), the duty nurse managers, PCAs and resident doctors. It works well, usually the residents are there in 2-3 mins and the MET call team in about 3-5 mins.