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Contact Debbie Millett via the member bridge or email her at debra.millett@hcahealthcare.com to find out more about how we did our education, changes our emergency carts, practiced with lots of drills.

our response is similar to Barbara's and with the work we've done to increase staff knowledge, practice and competence with handling medical emergencies, the Joint commission recently recognized our 106 bed free standing hospital as a best practice facility in this area. We started out with a rapid response team for medical emergencies, then decided to have all nurses go thru the training. All staff were educated in recognizing and responding to medical emergencies and we had lots of drills with different scenarios. MDs and RNs respond to all Code Greens (CPR not required) and Code Blues (CPR is required). We now have more Code Greens and less Code Blues. We, too, call EMS for transport to the medical hospital next door. Most of our Code Greens are for the same reasons that Barbara mentionned. Nurses are assigned from each unit each shift to respond to Code Green/Code Blue. We do not have any meds on the cart at this time.

Ashley,
Our facility has a code 4 team each shift that responds to medical emergencies. The team responds with a code cart, medication box, pulse ox, glucometer and external defibrillator.
The team is one nurse from each unit and there are rotating assignments.
Usual codes are hypoglycemia, seizures, anaphylaxis, MI, and respiratory distress. In 3 years I have performed CPR only once. We call EMS for transport to the hospital for acute injury or follow up care.