This article, originally posted on Sept. 23, 2019, was updated on June 20, 2025, to reflect current data. Please note that these statistics aren’t updated regularly. Always check with your state’s ...

Hospitals often use code names to alert staff to an emergency. Code blue means a medical emergency. Code red means fire or smoke. Code black typically means there is a bomb threat. Hospitals are the ...

Plain language announcements may improve hospital staff responses to nonclinical emergencies compared to traditional coded messages, according to a new nurse-led study from Cleveland Clinic. The ...

Many hospital employees are unable to identify the meaning of emergency codes, which could hinder an urgent response to incidents, according to a study published in the International Journal of ...

Anyone who has ever seen a medical show knows what a “code blue” is. For those not in the know, it’s a medical facility’s emergency code that a patient needs to be resuscitated. That isn’t the only ...

Patients and visitors at any of Piedmont Healthcare’s hospitals will now hear plain language emergency announcements, a best practice recommended by 25 state hospital associations and several leading ...

When quizzed on 14 codes at their facilities, employees got fewer than half right Anyone who has ever seen a medical show knows what a “code blue” is. For those not in the know, it’s a medical ...