Patient communication
Communicating code-alert delays without alarming patients
When a critically ill patient arrives, the team that was about to see everyone else is suddenly busy. The people waiting feel the delay but never see the cause. A short, calm, generic notice changes how that delay is experienced, as long as it follows a few strict rules.
- By
- EDFlow team
- Published
- Reading time
- 3 min read
The invisible cause of a visible delay
In a busy department, a resuscitation can pull a physician and several nurses away for an hour. The people in the waiting room notice that nothing is moving, but not why. Some assume they've been forgotten; some go back to the desk; some leave.
Maister's work on waiting describes almost exactly this situation: people wait with far more patience when they are told that an emergency has taken the staff away, because an explained wait feels shorter than an unexplained one.[1] The emergency department evidence agrees. Patients who were told about delays were 1.42 to 5.48 times less likely to give poor ratings than those who weren't.[2]
The rules that keep it calm
The notice exists to explain a delay, not to report an event. So it discloses nothing about the other patient and nothing that could frighten.
- No code name or colour, no location, no count and no duration. The only reason given is that someone is very unwell.
- Calm tone. An information icon and colour, never a siren or red.
- A safety line every time. If you feel worse, tell a staff member right away.
- Throttled. At most one notice per patient per 30 minutes, merged if repeated, and it expires on its own.
- Targeted. Only visits waiting for a clinician in the affected zones; never the subject of the code, and never a paused visit.
The words
This is the wording EDFlow uses, written in plain language in English and French, and the same on every device:
| Where | Text |
|---|---|
| Title | Your wait may be longer |
| Body | Someone in the emergency department needs urgent care right now, so part of our team is with them. This may add time to your wait. We haven't forgotten you, and we'll be with you as soon as we can. |
| Safety line | If you feel worse, tell a staff member right away. |
| Lock screen | Your wait may be longer. Tap for an update. |
| Family view | The care team is helping someone who is very unwell. Waits may be longer for a while. |
| Waiting-room display | Our team is caring for people who are very unwell. Waits may be longer. Thank you for your patience. |
"We haven't forgotten you" answers the fear the delay creates. "As soon as we can" promises nothing it can't keep. And the family version is even more general, because family members see less than the patient.
Plain-language codes and the staff side
Hospitals are moving from colour codes to plain-language overhead alerts, a change the Emergency Nurses Association supports for staff and public safety.[3] The patient delay notice is a separate thing and should stay separate: it never repeats an overhead code, and life-safety alerts never go through it.
On the staff side, posting a notice is one deliberate tap by someone with permission, from the code strip that sits under the header while a code is active. Staff see the code's name, area and elapsed time; patients see only that waits may be longer.
Frequently asked questions
Does the notice say what kind of emergency it is?
No. The notice never names the code, its colour, its location, how many people are involved or how long it may last. It says only that someone needs urgent care and that waits may be longer.
Who receives a delay notice?
Only people waiting for a clinician in the affected areas. Never the patient who is the subject of the code, never a visit whose updates are paused, and at most once per event, with a calm banner afterwards while the notice is active.
Is this used for life-safety alerts?
No. Fire, evacuation, lockdown and similar life-safety alerts stay with the hospital's emergency management and overhead paging. The delay notice is about waiting, not safety.
Sources
- [1]The Psychology of Waiting Lines (opens in a new tab) · David Maister
- [2]Managing patient expectations at emergency department triage (opens in a new tab) · Patient Experience Journal, 2015
- [3]Plain Language Emergency Alerts (position statement) (opens in a new tab) · Emergency Nurses Association, 2025