Blue code: Is it a real emergency?

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Cardiac arrests in hospital areas are common, and hospitals have rapid response teams or "blue code teams" to reduce preventable in-hospital deaths. Education about the rapid response team has been provided in all hospitals in Turkey, but true "blue code" activation is rare, and it is abused by medical personnel in practice. This study aimed to determine the cases of wrong blue codes and reasons of misuse. METHODS: This retrospective study analyzed the blue code reports issued by our hospital between January 1 and June 1 2012. A total of 89 "blue code" activations were recorded in 5 months. A "blue code" was defi ned as any patient with an unexpected cardiac or respiratory arrest requiring resuscitation and activation of a hospital alert. Adherence to this defi nition, each physician classifi ed their collected activation forms as either a true or a wrong code. Then, patient data entered a database (Microsoft Excel 2007 software) which was pooled for analysis. The data were analyzed by using frequencies and the Chi-square test on SPSSv16.0. RESULTS: The patients were diagnosed with cardiopulmonary arrest (8), change in mental status (18), presyncope (11), chest pain (12), conversive disorder (18), and worry of the staff for the patient (22). Code activation was done by physicians in 76% of the patients; the most common reason for blue code was concern of staff for the patient. CONCLUSION: The fi ndings of this study show that more research is needed to establish the overall effectiveness and optimal implementation of blue code teams.

Code Blue evaluation in children's hospital

“…The mean age of our Code Blue cases was 26.01 years old, which span from 3 months to 84 years old, was dramatically less than the other studies in Table 2, owing to the children's hospital cases. [5][6][7] As for the arrival time evaluation, the arrival time of Code Blue teams of our hospital ranged from 1 to 5 minutes which was concordant with the standards and the mean was 1.57 minutes. This was less than the other studies except one when it was compared with each other.…”

“…These stages are similar to the other processes which are "run the code" and "blue code". [4,5] The inspected Code Blue forms are dated from January 2014 to January 2015 retrospectively as the Code Blue Responding Team and evaluated the application of Code Blue in the hospital.…”

“…The process consists of a code that is announced by healthcare professionals and responded to by the designated personnel for intervention of cardiac arrest cases. [1][2][3][4][5] It is an emergency management tool that provides the quickest intervention. "Code Blue" is the only color code used for the same emergency case worldwide.…”

“Code Blue” in Theory Versus Daily Practice: Data from a Secondary Care Hospital Short title: “Code Blue” in a State Hospital

“…The overall response times after the completion of announcement were reported as 105 seconds in a study by Eroglu et al (8); 6 minutes in a study by Canural et al (7); 2.17 minutes in a study by Bal et al (9); 4,31 minutes in a study of Bayramoglu et al (10); and <1 minute in study of Ezquerra Garcia et al (11). Here, the time was <3 minutes.…”

Statistics of rapid response team's work in the training and research hospital of Ordu between 2010-2013: A retrospective study.

“…Delayed intervention in cardiac arrest cases causes ominous neurological results and hypoxic cerebral damage is the main cause of mortality and morbidity (3,4). The rapid response call may be needed for anybody within the limits of the hospital and the CPR team is supposed to arrive to the call location within 3 minutes to start CPR.…”