What Is Code Black?

The term "code black" was used in a 2006 post-Super Bowl episode of the television drama "Grey's Anatomy," giving rise to questions surrounding its true meaning. "Code" is often used to give a quick indication of an emergency situation and is often followed by a color or other descriptor indicating the nature of that emergency. However, the term "code black" has many meanings, and they are not consistent from one situation to another.

Diverse Meanings

• As a simple Internet search will reveal, "code black" has been used as business names, store names, comic book titles, as a term to describe language appealing to the African American community, as hospital emergency codes and as a call to action against pollution produced by coal plants. There is no standard usage for the term "code black."

Hospital Emergency Incident Command System

• Codes are commonly used in hospitals to describe emergency situations. On the 2006 episode of "Grey's Anatomy," which is set in a hospital, "code black" indicated a bomb threat. In fact, this is in line with the Emergency Incident Command System, according to John Patrick, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School and a doctor at Mount Auburn Hospital. Supported by the American Hospital Association, the Emergency Incident Command System is a template used by many hospitals for disaster management. In that template "black" is used to indicate a bomb threat.

Diversity in Hospitals

• Not all hospitals strictly adhere to the Hospital Emergency Incident Command System, however. For instance, "code black" is often used in Midwestern hospitals to indicate a tornado or severe weather warning. Some hospitals do not have a code black at all, and some states have their own versions of recommended disaster codes.

Bomb Threat Codes

• Bomb threats are known by different codes at different hospitals--not just "code black." The New Jersey Healthcare Emergency Codes system recommends bomb threats to be indicated by "code yellow," for instance. At the University of California San Diego Medical Center, bomb threats are "code 10." At Rhode Island Hospital/Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, they're "code green." At Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, they're "code white." The list goes on and on; the term "code black" cannot be relied upon to indicate a bomb threat at any health care facility.

Call To Action Against Coal Production

• At the organization Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), a 1985 Nobel Peace Prize awardee, "code black" is a call to protest the health effects of coal production. PSR claims the particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury and other pollutants coming from smokestacks contribute to cardiovascular and respiratory health damage, as well as threaten healthy child development. PSR calls on the medical community to protest the further construction of coal production plants and bring awareness to the health effects of air pollution.