Hospitals are requested to provide name and contact information for each facility/campus liaison by Friday Jan. 26.
Click here to submit information.
In efforts to support hospital campus personnel in effectively managing emergency situations and reducing variability across health care campuses, the WSHA Safety & Quality Committee has fully endorsed collaboration with hospital stakeholders over the next several months to modernize 15 safety, security and/or clinical events that universally support all campuses.
Federal agencies, such as the National Incident Management System, have established plain language requirements for communicating emergency information.
Earlier this month, WSHA President and CEO Cassie Sauer shared the project scope, timeline and objectives with all Washington hospital CEOs. Implementation of the updated, standardized emergency code event go-live is planned for Oct 1.
Emergency codes allow trained hospital personnel to respond quickly and appropriately to various safety, security and clinical incidents. There has been a trend to standardize overhead hospital emergency codes with an increased focus on the adoption of plain language and plain text.
WSHA engaged with several Washington hospitals, external patient safety stakeholders, other state hospital associations and the American Hospital Association to support standard emergency codes more than a decade ago.
In 2023, 19 hospitals – from small critical access hospitals to large health systems – convened and shared that more than 50 hospital codes are being utilized across Washington.
For more information, please contact Tina Seery. (Tina Seery)
