title: Variability of emergency color codes for critical events between hospitals in Riyadh.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Emergency color codes were developed to alert healthcare personnel in a hospital to critical situations. They are often developed independently by each hospital, leading to variability. This could be a source of confusion to healthcare personnel, who move frequently between hospitals and may work at multiple hospitals. This study evaluated the variability of emergency codes for different critical events in hospitals in Riyadh.
  
  
  METHODS
  A prospective, cross-sectional survey was carried out on a representative sample of hospitals. Twenty-four of 28 hospitals took part in the study. Semi-structured questionnaires were completed by the Quality/Safety Department of each hospital, on general hospital characteristics, emergency department characteristics, code-response mock-up, code determination, emergency codes used and code meanings.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirty-four different codes were used across hospitals. The codes used most variably were yellow (10 meanings), orange, black, green (7 meanings each), and gray (5 meanings), while the most consistently used code was 'Code Red' for 'Fire' in 75% of hospitals. Another source of variability was the use of non-color codes, representing 7.7% of total codes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is large variability in the type and meaning of emergency codes between hospitals in Riyadh City, reflecting a lack of standardization. Hospitals use color and non-color emergency codes, which could cause confusion to responders and mitigate the effectiveness and speed of response in critical events.
authors.forename: Isa
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ashworth
authors.forename: AbdelMoneim
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: El Dali
authors.forename: Omar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: ElDeib
authors.forename: AbdulAziz
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Altoub
authors.forename: Farooq
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pasha
authors.affiliation: Taimur S. Butt, MD, Chairman & Consultant,, Adult Emergency Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, PO Box 3354, Riyadh 11211,, Saudi Arabia, T: 966-11-4424425/966-11-4423985, tbutt@kfshrc.edu.sa.
authors.forename: Taimur
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Butt
mesh_terms: D003116:Color; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004630:Emergencies; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000458:organization & administration; D006761:Hospitals / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012449:Safety; D012529:Saudi Arabia; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires