Code Pink (Paediatric Rapid Response Team Call)

Purpose

The purpose of this guideline is to define the indications and process of calling Code Pink in Starship Children’s Hospital to optimise the response to acute physiological deterioration.

Definitions

A code pink call should be initiated for any one or more of:

• Any patient causing serious concern to staff or family/whānau

• As per PEWS escalation pathway

• Acute Change in Neurological Status:

  • Decrease in Glasgow Coma Scale of >2 points

  • Repeated or prolonged seizures

The code pink team will be paged on the emergency locator and is expected to respond within a 15 minute time frame (for the membership of the code pink team see the emergency calls guideline).

The code pink team will support ward staff with advice and acute management to promote early intervention and prevent clinical deterioration resulting in respiratory and cardiac arrests or other serious sequelae. Patients requiring immediate attention should have a paediatric code blue called.

The code pink team does not replace the child’s primary medical team in their role of patent management. It is the responsibility of the paediatric medical registrar to inform the child’s primary team of the Code Pink call.

Any Health Professional in Starship Children’s Hospital may initiate a Code Pink call.

A young person or family/whānau in Starship Children’s Hospital may initiate a Kōrero Mai Code Pink call to escalate care concerns.

Documentation

Individual members of the code pink team document in the clinical record.

To ensure that an appropriate and accurate record is documented for quality and audit processes, the Patient at Risk Nurse Specialist completes a PaR data collection form.

Following a code pink call

Staff defusing and/or debriefing is completed utilising the After Critical Event (ACE) review process.