Question: In your work or office do have codes for like emergency or like immediate care for someone who is in critical or coma stage?

Natalie Fowler answered on 18 Nov 2019:

I’m not sure whether you mean codes like “call a code” which is a phrase usually used in films and TV when someone is in cardiac arrest. If a patient deteriorates then a member of staff will pull the emergency buzzer which can be heard across the unit and millions of people will run to that patient (it’s like a herd of elephants!!!!).

We do use shortened versions of words to talk about conditions and therapies, for example when we talk about cleaning someone’s blood using a haemofilter we call it CVVH. Or if somebody has had a cardiac arrest and has been brought in to intensive care we call them an OOHCA (out of hospital cardiac arrest) . Lots of things get shortened because otherwise we would be writing A LOT.

There is also an entire coding department in the hospital who are responsible for giving codes to every diagnosis and test to determine costs and financial figures as well as data analysis. I saw a lecture about what they do once and found it amazingly interesting.