FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WOWO): Hospitals around the region will be adopting a new emergency alert notification system.
The Northeast Indiana Patient Safety Coalition (NeIPSC) said that each hospital currently has it's own color code system to alert their workers of severe situations like fires or chemical spills. The new system will move away from a color coding alert and will adopt a new Plain Language System. The new protocol will be used across northeast Indiana and will alert hospital workers through their internal paging systems.
They say instead of alerting everyone by a color code, the new language approach will be easier to understand:
|
Color Coding System |
Plain Language System |
|
Code Red: Fire |
Fire alert + location of fire |
|
Code White: Severe Weather |
Weather alert + specific weather event (i.e. thunderstorm warning) |
|
Code Orange: Disaster |
Emergency alert + type of disaster |
Plain language is intended to improve patient safety outcomes, since new employees may not know what is under certain color codes.
