Saturday, February 22, 2014

Code Brown Boomerang!

All to often a patient from the ICU will have to go to the OR for a procedure.  These patients are usually on vents with lines everywhere.  A code brown will happen, usually right before they have to go to the OR.  Our basic rule is if it happens on your watch, you take care of it.  So if it happens in the ICU, the ICU team cleans it up. If it happens in the OR, the OR team takes care of it.  There are some who try to hide it in the ICU because it is hard to move the patient and they think "well the OR team will have to move them to the OR table, so it will be easier for them to clean it!" but this doesn't happen to much.  The real problem, is what happens during transport.  One patient had a bad blow out in the ICU and they cleaned it, in the OR they were clean and they were clean when they went back on the ICU bed.  When they got back to the ICU, there it was again.  the blow out happened right between the OR and the ICU.  The ICU nurse got all mad and demanded the OR team come back and clean it up.  There was a huge discussion on the rules of code browns and "he who smelt it must deal with it", but when it was all over both teams took care of the patient, who had another code brown a few minutes later.

1 comment:

SeaSpray said...

Awww ...poor patient ..surgery and diarrhea.

Well ...at least then she saw it was the patient and not the OR staff.

When working, I've seen staff pass stuff off to next shift ..or next department when they should've done it and as a patient ...I've been the victim of being passed off for the next shift - not a good experience.