Colors

There is a really cool museum in San Diego, California called the USS Midway Museum, located in the downtown area at Navy Pier.  The museum is housed (and mainly consists of) the aircraft carrier, USS Midway, which was in active service from 1945 to 1992.  One of the things you may see at the museum are manikins dressed up in the various Navy uniforms that you would have seen on the aircraft carrier while it was in active service.  There really is a rainbow of colors!  Keeping with our theme on High Reliability Organizations and what we can learn from aircraft carrier flight operations (one of the three original HRO prototypes), today I would like to discuss a little more about this rainbow of colors.

All of the more than 5,500 crew members on a United States Navy aircraft carrier really exist to perform one duty - put aircraft (planes and helicopters) into the air and safely recover them after they leave the flight deck.  Many of these crew members actually work on the busy flight deck.  It's really something to watch (there are plenty of videos online - here is one that is called "Controlled Chaos").  Each individual crew member has his or her special role, and the role is designated by the color of the shirt that he or she wears (see the pictures below).




Here is a quick guide to the color-coded jerseys on an aircraft carrier from the U.S. Navy's website:

Purple:  Aviation Fuels (nickname: "Grapes")

Blue:  Plane Handlers, Aircraft Elevator Operators, Tractor Drivers, Messengers and Phone Talkers

Green: Catapult and Arresting Gear Crews, Air Wing Maintenance Personnel, Cargo Handlers

Yellow: Aircraft Handling officers, Gear and Arresting Gear Officers, Plane Directors

Red: Ordnancemen (i.e. bomb loaders), Crash and Salvage Crews, Explosive Ordnance Disposal

Brown: Air Wing Plane Captains, Air Wing Line Leading Petty Officers

White: Air Wing Quality Control, Inspectors, Safety Observers, Medical Personnel, Landing Signal Officer, Liquid Oxygen Crews


Fairly impressive, right?  Each job category is grouped into a larger category of functions (e.g., individuals wearing white jerseys generally involve medical and safety related functions).  It's all very systematic and highly organized, all of which contribute significantly to the "controlled chaos" of flight deck operations.

When you consider all of the different job categories and types of health care providers working in the hospital setting, it seems logical to ask whether hospitals have adopted a similar system of color-coding.  It turns out, I know of at least one health care organization that color codes the scrubs of everyone working in the hospital.  It's a specialty hospital (basically taking care of adults with acute heart disease) that I had an opportunity to visit a few years ago.  As I was walking around, I noticed a sign posted on every patient room that described their own "rainbow of colors" - here is a picture:

Pretty interesting, right?!?!  One of the common complaints I hear from patients and families is that they never know the exact role of the individuals that enter their rooms.  Some hospitals, including ours, tried to address this by wearing an attachment on our name badge that states our role (e.g., attending physician, fellow, resident, nurse, respiratory therapist, social worker, etc).  The cardiac hospital I visited solved this issue by having everyone wear a different color of scrubs. 

I asked several of the workers whether they liked the different color of scrubs.  They actually said that they wore their different colors with pride.  If you look at the sign carefully, you will also notice that physicians aren't mentioned.  I asked about that too.  Most of the physicians that I spoke with said that they wore a white lab coat (none of the physicians were employed directly by the hospital), but I did think that it was a miss not to include them (or for that matter, nurse practitioners or physician assistants) on the list. 

It's an interesting thought.  I would love to hear what the patients and families think, as well as hearing more from the hospital staff as well.  The parallel with what the U.S. Navy is doing with carrier flight operations is also intriguing. 

Tell me what you think!