Australian Standardisation of the Hospital Emergency Number

Welcome to the Australian Standardisation of the Hospital Emergency Number (ASHEN) web page.

So far we’ve managed to drive standardisation of the Hospital Emergency Number within all NSW and ACT public hospitals and across the Ramsay Healthcare Group. We are aware Victoria will soon follow suit.

To help drive standardisation of the Hospital Emergency Number across the rest of Australia and further internationally we are looking to fund a short video highlighting the initiative for display on social and other media. Please do help us if you can:

The form is not published.

In 2006 the British NHS and private hospitals achieved standardisation of their hospital emergency number (crash call/cardiac arrest number) at 2222.

The rest of Europe and several other countries internationally are working to follow suit with 2222.

Prior to standardisation a survey of British hospitals noted 27 different emergency numbers.

From an ongoing survey in Australia we have noted 51 different numbers so far. Many survey responders noted difficulty in remembering their Hospital Emergency Number and there is overwhelming support for standardisation.

So far, standardisation in Australia has received support from the

– Australian Resuscitation Council (ARC),

– Australia and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA)

– Australian Society of Anaesthetists (ASA)

– Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS)

– Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF)

– Australasian College of Emergency Medicine (ACEM)

– Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare (ACSQHC)

– Minister for Health Hon Greg Hunt (see here)

We’ve created a working group which includes, among others, members of the ARC, ANZCA, ASA and ACEM. This group also contains telecommunications experts focussed on the technical aspects of hospital emergency number standardisation.

We continue to obtain data regarding individual institutions, whether they have an existing emergency number, what it is and key contact personnel within these institutions. Please feel free to take a look – if the details of one of your hospitals is incomplete please do feel free to contact us with relevant information.

NSW Health recently standardised the Hospital Emergency Number in public hospitals at 2222. Several private hospitals have also standardised – we will contact the remainder to encourage standardisation at 2222 and help drive this across the rest of Australia and beyond.

Green Icons – Hospital Emergency Number 2222

Amber Icons – Non standardised Hospital Emergency Number

Red Icons – we don’t have the data for the Hospital Emergency Number at this institution

Grey Icons – Institutions which do not use an internal Hospital Emergency Number

Next steps:

– We have contacted several hospital governing bodies and continue to do so to make them aware of the initiative, obtain their feedback and support.

– We continue to develop this website to help deliver standardisation. We will provide links for technical support for institutions to deliver standardisation.

– We are developing a brief video and awareness campaign to deliver across several media platforms.

– We are collaborating with human factors and design experts to develop a range of ‘2222’ Hospital Emergency Number point of care stickers/labels

– We are looking to obtain funds to support the standardisation process.

Standardisation at 2222 across Europe is well underway – for more information click here

There is a drive to standardise at 2222 internationally: