What do you use for personal alarms on psych units

[joel leong]

I'm wondering what people use for personal alarms on their respective psych units. If you could include where your at it would be helpful. I'm at San Francisco General Hospital and I'm trying to see what other places use for their personal alarms. thanks for the help

[elkpark]

Do you mean like bed/chair alarms for the clients, or "panic buttons" for the staff? I've never worked anywhere where staff used a personal alarm system (although I've heard of them).

[Psychcns]

I worked over at John George psychiatric pavilion in San Leandro a few years ago and we had personal alarms. You may want to give a call over there.

[RedSoxFan84]

I've worked at two different places that utilized panic buttons which we wore at all times. I've never had to use it but had coworkers who have. It initializes a code so security will report to the unit ASAP.

[New Angel]

Our voices and phone paging systems are our personal alarms. If we yell the word 'Staff!', then people know to run to the voice, and beyond our unit doors we use a phone paging system for good ol' Dr. Strong over the phone intercoms, they run through the entire building. It has been troublesome, but we are a 20 bed psych locked county unit..and the only one for over a hundred miles in any direction. Our space is very small and our budget is VERY tight.

[macfar28]

I'm in NC and we use nothing which bothers us greatly. It's too costly they say however over at the med/surg floors not only do they have panic alarms they also where tracers that show which patient room they are in.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

I use my voice. Years spent calling bingo games have given me a good set of pipes :)

I do agency work at one facility that sometimes hands out personal alarms...and more often than not we're dealing with false alarms because someone sat/pushed/hit it the wrong way. So they're a mixed bag.

[pixiestudent2]

Everyone has a panic button where I work, it alerts s a safety to come up and everyone on the floor is alerted with an alarm and lights. You of course can yell as well.

[twinkerrs]

Where I worked we used radios. All staff wore a headset and radio. But dang trying to get to that button to call a code is sometimes impossible if your hands are full with a patient.