srd84
Member
Yesterday I heard "Howard is code yellow." Anyone know what that means?
Thanks,
Steve
Thanks,
Steve
Howard Co is code yellow
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Llwellyn
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If that was on a fire department or EMS frequency, they were probably meaning that Howard General Hospital was on Yellow status. It could also mean, if they work like AA, that communications were degraded and they were on condition Yellow... although usually that would be stated as "Fire Alarm is on condition Yellow" and not "Anne Arundel is on condition Yellow". The broadcast for Yellow status for AAMC would be given out as "Attention all EMS units, Anne Arundel is on Yellow". That's what makes me think that they mean the hospital was on Yellow, since all the dispatch centers around here use similar protocol.
If you don't know about it, all of Maryland is dispatched based on a standard EMS protocol system devised by MIEMSS (Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems). The hospitals all have certain capabilities and capacities, and when those are adversely affected there is a standard set of status colors that applies, and all counties that are in that hospital's MIEMSS region will announce hospital status changes on their EMS and/or dispatch channels.
The statuses are:
Yellow Alert: The ER is temporarily overwhelmed with patients and feels it cannot safely care for any additional priority II and III patients.
Red Alert: The hospital has no more ECG beds available (including all inpatient beds).
Mini-Disaster: The ER is experiencing a critical incident and cannot accept any patients at all.
Re-Route: A transport unit is being held at the ER because no beds are available for the patient transported by that rig. Does not replace Yellow Alert.
Trauma By-Pass: The trauma center feels that it can no longer function as a trauma center and patients should be diverted to another acceptable facility.
Capacity: The hospital's capacity has been exceeded.
There is one last one, that is decided by the county itself rather than MIEMSS or the hospital, and that is:
Blue Alert: A county is experiencing inclement weather such that safety and security of transport units is an issue. All transport units are to transport to the nearest facility regardless of any Yellow status.
You can find a real-time web tracker of current hospital status at the web address above.
If you don't know about it, all of Maryland is dispatched based on a standard EMS protocol system devised by MIEMSS (Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems). The hospitals all have certain capabilities and capacities, and when those are adversely affected there is a standard set of status colors that applies, and all counties that are in that hospital's MIEMSS region will announce hospital status changes on their EMS and/or dispatch channels.
The statuses are:
Yellow Alert: The ER is temporarily overwhelmed with patients and feels it cannot safely care for any additional priority II and III patients.
Red Alert: The hospital has no more ECG beds available (including all inpatient beds).
Mini-Disaster: The ER is experiencing a critical incident and cannot accept any patients at all.
Re-Route: A transport unit is being held at the ER because no beds are available for the patient transported by that rig. Does not replace Yellow Alert.
Trauma By-Pass: The trauma center feels that it can no longer function as a trauma center and patients should be diverted to another acceptable facility.
Capacity: The hospital's capacity has been exceeded.
There is one last one, that is decided by the county itself rather than MIEMSS or the hospital, and that is:
Blue Alert: A county is experiencing inclement weather such that safety and security of transport units is an issue. All transport units are to transport to the nearest facility regardless of any Yellow status.
You can find a real-time web tracker of current hospital status at the web address above.
If I may shorten that a bit for the casual listeners, Fire Alarm will go on CONDITION yellow (blue, red, etc), the hospitals go on yellow, red, blue ALERT, etc. The verbal difference you should listen for is the words condition or alert
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Uttoxeter
Member
"Code Yellow" replaced the old "Condition Overload" in Howard County's Fire Dispatch (AKA "Howard" - Police is "Dispatch"), which is declared when the dispatch center is so overwhelmed that it needs to restrict radio traffic to dispatching calls and emergency transmissions. Howard County experienced a failure of the 911 system on Tuesday, so they had to call in the Code Yellow until they could reroute the 911 lines to the backup center and get it staffed.
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