By Tiffany Lai August 14, 2023
The hospital employs different ways of calling for help to deploy qualified personnel in a timely manner. If you encounter an issue during your session, here are different ways of calling for help:
Can be used to call nursing assistants to assist with pericare or linen changes, to call nursing to request pain medicine or to disconnect IVs to make line management easier.
Help may not come right away.
Used if the patient fainted or fell during your session and you need help right away. The nursing team on your floor will come in to assist immediately.
What you do after you make the call: let nursing know what happened and help with the transfer back to a safe location, likely back to bed.
When the patient is experiencing a life or death, critical medical emergency such as having symptoms of a heart attack or appearance of a critical heart rhythm or has stopped breathing etc.
- Nurses and doctors nearby will rush in as well as your hospital’s code blue team with crash carts.
- What to do after you make the call: usually step away and let the medical team take over once they arrive. Likely the room will suddenly become very crowded. In the unlikely event the team doesn't come immediately, you'll have to perform life saving measures.
If this happens during your session, make sure to document clearly in your notes what happened and speak to your rehab manager immediately.
Take care of yourself! Step out to have a breather and/or ask to return home if needed.
Note about codes called over the hospital PA system. Codes vary between hospitals but are generally on a color system, which should be taught to you when starting a new job. It may inform you of agitated patients that need the security team to step in, bomb or gun threats, possible infant abductions, code blues etc.
It is helpful to listen when codes are called. If a patient on your list has a medical emergency, you will be informed.