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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hospital emergency codes | 2/3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_emergency_codes | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:28:26.202116+00:00 | kb-cron |
Code black: bomb threat Code blue: cardiac or respiratory arrest Code brown: hazardous material Code gold: earthquake (Yukon has the highest seismic activity rate in Canada) Code green stage 1: partial evacuation to a safe area within the building Code green stage 2: complete evacuation of the building Code grey: shelter in place/air exclusion Code orange: mass casualty Code red: fire Code white: aggressive behaviour Lockdown: violent situation/hostage taking Code yellow: missing patient
=== United Kingdom ===
In the UK, hospitals have standardised codes across individual NHS trusts (England and Wales) and health boards (Scotland), but there are not many standardised codes across the entire NHS. This allows for differences in demands on hospitals in different areas, and also for hospitals of different roles to communicate different alerts according to their needs (e.g., a major trauma centre like St. George's Hospital in South London has different priority alert needs to a rural community hospital like West Berkshire Community Hospital). Some more standardised codes are as follows:
Code black: hospital at capacity – no available beds for new admissions from A&E. A code black is declared by the hospital's general bed manager, who then relays this to the local ambulance service and posts updates for local healthcare services such as GPs and district nursing teams. Code red: This is the United Kingdom's rapid response code. This call gets specialist doctors and trauma teams to the location for assistance in things like major traumas and deteriorating patients in situations like choking or airway compromise. This call also can be used to activate a major hemorrhage protocol in the event of a massive bleed. This call is referred to as code red, staff assist, trauma protocol or rapid response. This is the only emergency protocol which has a code. The only other is what is announced as a mass casualty protocol not any codes. This is to show a major incident has taken place like a terrorist attack and the protocol is activated to alert specialists and begin special emergency procedures like mass casualty triage and decontamination. Major haemorrhage protocol: activated via the code red system. A peri-arrest call is put out, but the transfusion lab is also alerted. A specified number of units of O-negative packed red blood cells, and sometimes fresh frozen plasma and platelets, are immediately sent to the location of the call. The transfusion lab will cross-match any saved blood samples for the patient, or await an urgent cross-match sample to be sent. Once this is done, units matching the patient's blood type will be continually sent until the major haemorrhage protocol is stood down. Otherwise, non-colour codes are mostly used across the NHS:
2222 (crash call or peri-arrest call): dialling 2222 from any internal phone in nearly all NHS hospitals will connect the caller immediately to the switchboard. The caller can then specify the type of cardiac arrest or peri-arrest call (usually adult, paediatric (or neonatal) or obstetric) and give a location (eg "Adult cardiac arrest, Surgical Admissions Unit, ground floor B block" or "Obstetric peri-arrest, obstetric theatres, 4th floor maternity wing") and the switchboard will bleep the members of the relevant cardiac arrest or peri-arrest team. Some UK hospitals do not have a peri-arrest team, and the cardiac arrest team can be used for urgent medical emergencies where cardiac arrest is imminent. 3333 (security alert) 4444 (fire alert) "Fast bleep" codes: a 2222 call for a specific member of staff. For example, in status epilepticus, it is not necessary to call the crash team (as is done in cardiac arrest) but a fast bleep can be made to the on-call anaesthetist to come urgently. Trauma call: adult (trauma centres only): usually called over a PA system across the emergency department, triggering a "trauma call" paging request to all members of the trauma team: including a trauma surgeon and senior members their surgical team, an anaesthetist and ODP, emergency medicine consultant or registrar and members of their team (this will be usually be an FY1 or SHO). Trauma calls are similar to "resus codes" used in the US. paediatric (trauma centres only): triggers a "trauma call" paging request to all members of the paediatric trauma team – including a trauma surgeon and senior members of their surgical team, often additionally a paediatric surgeon, a paediatric anaesthetist, ODP, (paediatric) emergency medicine consultant or registrar and members of their team (this will be usually be an FY1 or SHO).
=== United States === In 2000, the Hospital Association of Southern California (HASC) determined that a uniform code system was needed after three people were killed in a shooting incident at a hospital after the wrong emergency code was called. While codes for fire (red) and medical emergency (blue) were similar in 90% of California hospitals queried, 47 different codes were used for infant abduction and 61 for combative person. In light of this, the HASC published a handbook titled Healthcare Facility Emergency Codes: A Guide for Code Standardization listing various codes and has strongly urged hospitals to voluntarily implement the revised codes. In 2003, Maryland mandated that all acute hospitals in the state have uniform codes. In 2008, the Oregon Association of Hospitals & Health Systems, Oregon Patient Safety Commission, and Washington State Hospital Association formed a taskforce to standardise emergency code calls. After both states had conducted a survey of all hospital members, the task force found many hospitals used the same code for fire (code red); however, there were tremendous variations for codes representing respiratory and cardiac arrest, infant and child abduction, and combative persons. Consistent across the thirteen states with uniform codes as of 2020 were code red (fire), code blue (cardiac arrest and/or medical emergency), and code orange (hazardous material spill/release). Some other colour codes used in multiple states are listed in the table below. Of these, only Maryland's code is mandatory as of 2020.
Additional codes (not including plain-language codes) include, but are not limited to: