Code Chopper???

deespoohbear · Jun 12, 2002

Our facility does not announce overhead that the chopper is on its way. (We are a small county hospital and fortunately we don't have to call that often.) The shift nursing supervisor is notified and the ER personnel. 99% of our chopper transfers are from the ER. The rest of the hospital finds out when the hear the chopper overhead. The noise isn't that terrible. Most of the patients like to look at their windows and look at the chopper. Also, county dispatch puts the fire department on standby in case the chopper would crash (God forbid!!). Everyone knows that Samartian has landed, but usually doesn't know what the circumstances are. My personal opinion is that to develop a policy about the noise from the chopper is petty. If it was one of my family members that needed the chopper (and I have been in that situation), forget the noise. Most people realize that the chopper is called because someone needs emergent critical care and are compassionate enough not to let the noise bother them. The few that do complain about the noise are just jerks. :( IMHO, of course.:chuckle

MPHkatie · Jun 12, 2002

We do not announce a code overhead, as many of our chopper patients are indeed not coding, so that seems a bit inappropriate to me, plus, it seems overhead pages are more disturbing than some helicopter noise. Combine the two- and you know it's even more annoying. Considering all the annoying hospital noises (floor buffers etc) I doubt the helicopter arriving will be complained about much, most patients like to see it take off and land. We simply alert a pager system....for those who need to know. Otherwise, I must admit, I don't actually thinkit's anyone elses business. I agree with you, announcing it overhead would be overkill.

CATHYW · Jun 12, 2002

In my career at other facilities, a code was never announced. We would call those that needed to know.
Hank [/b]

:rolleyes: This is a no-brainer, Hank. We (at 2 facilities I worked at) did the same thing you have done in the past. We let the relevant folks know-admin., Fire & Police Depts., and hospital security.

:cool: If there was an overhead announcement made, there would be sight-seers out the wazoo-it doesn't take long to figure out what our codes mean. Then you would have the potential for injury to the gawkers from flying debris when the chopper sets down.

zudy · Jun 12, 2002

You are having a meeting to try and decide if ther should be a code for helicopters??!!!??? :uhoh3: Please tell me a suit, and not a nurses had this brillant idea. This is so typical of hospital administrators, they have no idea of what is important in a hospital. I have worked in 3 ers with heliports and no, we have never had any kind of code. Tell your administrator for me that if he/ she wants to have a meeting, why don't they talk about something important, like nurses retention, or adequate staffing!! :confused:

fedupnurse · Jun 12, 2002

Couldn't agree more with Zudy!!! At my facility, they announce trauma team to the ER or Helipad. Why I will never know. Anyone and everyone that needs to know has a damn beeper. It is extremely annoying to the CCU patients to be awakened sometimes 14 times a night! If we are transporting or receiving a helicopter patient to or from the ICU no announcement is made. We call security and let them know. They turn on the bug lights (well, that's what they look like!!!!) around the helipad and no fanfare is made. Oh what the suits will do to stroke the already over-inflated ego's of trauma surgeons!!!

Do your patients a favor-don't do overhead paging. This is the only overhead paging that is routinely done unless the beeper system is down. It is obnoxious.

Good luck.