Healthcare Emergency Codes and Information Technology
Posted Aug 08 2011 12:00am
I'm not really sure what is happening, but I seem to have had a surge in emergency and disaster posts. I also just submitted an article that will be published soon on disaster planning for information services and technology departments.
Today I'm sharing a resource that I often wondered about when I worked in my hospitals. Healthcare Emergency Codes: A Guide for Code Standardization is an effort to standardize codes across hospitals so that there is consistency given that our staff usually move across facilities. In healthcare and disasters, standardization is wonderful whenever possible. The standard codes for hospitals are:
RED for fire Š
BLUE for adult medical emergency Š
WHITE for pediatric medical emergency Š
PINK for infant abduction Š
PURPLE for child abduction Š
YELLOW for bomb threat Š
GRAY for a combative person Š
SILVER for a person with a weapon and/or hostage situation Š
ORANGE for a hazardous material spill/release Š
GREEN Patient Elopement
TRIAGE INTERNAL for ALERT internal disaster Š
TRIAGE EXTERNAL for ALERT external disaster
Many hospitals are also starting to call codes for bed capacity to speed patient flow and avoid the need for diversion. At some point, we may see an attempt to standardize this one.
Information technology is increasingly becoming a critical tool to business and clinical functions. So, having just written the HIT disaster paper, I'm wondering if there should be some sort of information code. For example, if malware or a virus is identified should a code be called to alert users to not use a particular system or to be cautious of suspicious emails. In the past I would receive an email, but how many did I open before I got to that one.
Since I'm not a techie, I'm wondering what my techie readers think. Can you see an information technology event that would warrant alerting electronic information users by calling a code? Lets think and post this through and see what we can come up with together.
I'm not really sure what is happening, but I seem to have had a surge in emergency and disaster posts. I also just submitted an article that will be published soon on disaster planning for information services and technology departments.
Today I'm sharing a resource that I often wondered about when I worked in my hospitals. Healthcare Emergency Codes: A Guide for Code Standardization is an effort to standardize codes across hospitals so that there is consistency given that our staff usually move across facilities. In healthcare and disasters, standardization is wonderful whenever possible. The standard codes for hospitals are:
RED for fire Š BLUE for adult medical emergency Š WHITE for pediatric medical emergency Š PINK for infant abduction Š PURPLE for child abduction Š YELLOW for bomb threat Š GRAY for a combative person Š SILVER for a person with a weapon and/or hostage situation Š ORANGE for a hazardous material spill/release Š GREEN Patient Elopement TRIAGE INTERNAL for ALERT internal disaster Š TRIAGE EXTERNAL for ALERT external disasterMany hospitals are also starting to call codes for bed capacity to speed patient flow and avoid the need for diversion. At some point, we may see an attempt to standardize this one.
Information technology is increasingly becoming a critical tool to business and clinical functions. So, having just written the HIT disaster paper, I'm wondering if there should be some sort of information code. For example, if malware or a virus is identified should a code be called to alert users to not use a particular system or to be cautious of suspicious emails. In the past I would receive an email, but how many did I open before I got to that one.
Since I'm not a techie, I'm wondering what my techie readers think. Can you see an information technology event that would warrant alerting electronic information users by calling a code? Lets think and post this through and see what we can come up with together.