The Code Team at UIHC consists of 2 senior medicine residents, a medicine intern, a surgical resident, and an anesthesia resident.
The Code Team at VAMC consists of a medicine senior and medicine intern. Anesthesia staff and a surgery resident are also part of the team; they are in house during business hours and on home pager during off-hours. The MOD is always available and can be paged to come to a code.
If you are the first one to arrive, assess the patient and start the ABCs of ACLS. The seniors will be there soon.
Think of ABC — 5B’s — D:
Airway — do you need one?
Breathing — bag-mask ventilation
Circulation — BP, pulse, IV access
Bed board — remove and place under patient
Box — crash cart, monitor
Bucket — suction
Blood — ABG, accucheck, STAT labs
Back-up — have someone call your senior and the code team
Destination — arrange for transfer to an ICU
Always leave an Event or Code Note in the chart for all significant overnight events, including patient transfers to an ICU, rapid responses, and codes.
Use the EPIC templates to write event notes after every Code Blue or Rapid Response. These can be found by changing the note type to “Active Issue/Provider Note”. You can then use F2 to access templates for Rapid Response, Code Blood, and Death Notes (among others).