pediatric code blue

[ucarn71]

i am interested in several things .

i work a community hospital that has a general med surg peds floor 10 bed no picu. If those of you could answer who work at a similiar setting no picu in your faclity. thanks

1. at what age are your pediatric code blues called for?

2. do you have a seperate code blue documentation form for adult codes and pediatric codes?

3.what is the definition of a pediatric patient at your facility to follow pediatric policies?

thank you tiffany kidd msn.rnc ccrn,cpen

[15isto2]

Hi Tiffany,

in my hospital (I am in the UK) we would call for peds for any child in the paed ward (16 years or younger) or in the ED but any child 16 or older admitted to an adult ward would be delt with by the adult team. We also call the adult team for paed arrests due to the fact that some of the children are bigger than the team members!

We the same aduit form for adult and paed arrests.

We reagrd anyone 16 or under who is still at school as a child, 16yo who has left school go to adult services

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Our hospital classifies peds as birth to 17th birthday. Only in the most desperate situations would older teens be admitted to adult units. But in the case of a visitor to the hospital, the decision as to which team is called rests with the person initiating the call. Obviously if a 16 year old is attending a clinic in the building with a parent and goes down the parent will know how old the person is and the call will be for peds. Other than in this sort of situation, there is no consideration of size... it's all age. Some of our older teens ARE bigger than most adults, like the patient I had a couple of weeks ago... but still a pediatric/PICU patient. Our documentation is specific to peds as well.