CHARLOTTE — On the recommendation of the North Carolina Hospital Association, Carolinas HealthCare System is adopting plain language emergency alerts across greater Charlotte hospitals and facilities. Effective July 1, the system will no longer use color-coded alerts. This new approach will make it easier to communicate the exact nature of an emergency.
Plain-language alerts address two types of events:
- Medical Alerts (“Code blue” will still be used for cardiac respiratory events)
- Security Alerts (e.g., missing person, armed subject/active shooter, threat of violence, hostage situation, suspicious package/bomb threat, restricted access)
- Facility Alerts (e.g., evacuation, fire alarm, hazardous materials spill, mass casualty, medical decontamination, utility/technology interruption, weather)
Clear, or “plain” language, makes a big difference in an emergency. Implementing these changes addresses a number of goals, including:
- Reducing variation of emergency codes among North Carolina hospitals
- Cutting down on confusion for hospital staff working in multiple facilities
- Increasing patient, staff and public safety within hospitals and communities
- Eliminating the need for excessive overhead announcements
- Promoting transparency of safety protocols
Adoption of plain language is supported by a number of organizations, including the US Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the National Incident Management System.
The hospitals making this change are: Carolinas Medical Center, Carolinas Medical Center-Mercy, Levine Children’s Hospital, Carolinas HealthCare System Pineville, Carolinas HealthCare System University, Carolinas HealthCare System Lincoln, Carolinas HealthCare System NorthEast, Jeff Gordon Children’s Hospital, Carolinas HealthCare System Anson, Carolinas HealthCare System Union, Carolinas HealthCare System Cleveland, and Carolinas HealthCare System Kings Mountain.