Penn Highlands Healthcare Implements New Emergency Alerts
At Penn Highlands Healthcare, the safety of patients, visitors, employees, physicians and volunteers is one of its highest priorities. On August 6, 2025, the health system is standardizing all medical, facility and security alerts across its hospitals and senior living facilities to improve communication and responses during emergencies. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have recommended the use of plain language alerts to communicate clearly in emergency situations.
Throughout the health system, standardized plain language emergency alerts are replacing the color-coded codes, which have been used to notify employees, physicians and volunteers about critical situations occurring in the hospitals and senior living facilities. The new alerts use clear, everyday language to ensure that everyone – including patients and visitors – understand the nature of the situations and the actions required to be taken.
“By sharing plain language alerts with patients and visitors, it helps to improve communication and reduce confusion during emergencies, said Megan Bussard, System Vice President of Safety and Quality at Penn Highlands Healthcare. “The new alerts help ensure that everyone, including non-healthcare professionals, understands the nature and scope of an emergency, facilitating faster and more effective responses.”
The alerts will be identical for all hospitals and senior living facilities in the Northwest, Central and Southwest regions.
Alerts will reflect three types of situations:
- Medical, such as alerts for the Rapid Response Team
- Facility, such as a fire
- Security, such as a combative patient
“We are standardizing the alerts to eliminate confusion that can be associated with the ambiguous codes; help facilitate faster responses by clearly stating the emergency; and provide greater transparency by sharing clear information about the nature of the emergency,” explained Bussard. For more than 10 weeks, the health system’s employees have been receiving training on the new alerts to enrich their understanding and increase their safety awareness so that they are well prepared to respond when the new alerts are announced.