Impact of "The Pause" on the Code Blue Team and Exploration of Witnessing Death

Area of Science:

• Healthcare professional well-being
• Medical ethics
• Psychological support in medicine

Background:

• Healthcare professionals experience emotional trauma following patient deaths after resuscitation.
• A community teaching hospital's code blue team introduced "The Pause" to support interprofessional staff.
• This intervention aimed to mitigate the psychological impact of patient mortality.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effect of "The Pause" on compassion fatigue, distress, and mindfulness.
• To explore clinicians' experiences with patient death post-code blue and their use of "The Pause."

Main Methods:

• A multimethod study involving pre- and post-implementation surveys.
• Interviews were conducted with clinical and nonclinical staff involved in house-wide code blue events.
• Data collection occurred before and after the intervention's rollout.

Main Results:

• Compassion fatigue scores decreased, and mindfulness scores increased post-intervention, though not significantly.
• Participants reported increased distress from patient deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Qualitative data revealed themes on the pandemic's impact on death, emotional coping, and "The Pause" as a humanizing element.

Conclusions:

• "The Pause" was perceived as a beneficial coping mechanism for code blue-related deaths.
• The COVID-19 pandemic presented challenges in quantifying the intervention's effects.
• "The Pause" offers a potential avenue for supporting and empowering healthcare professionals during critical moments of witnessing death.