Preparedness for mass gatherings: rescue and emergency medical services’ workloads during mass gathering events

Abstract

Background Mass gathering (MG) events may cause delayed emergency responses via various mechanisms and strain the resources of local emergency services. Therefore, preparedness, including adequate pre-planning and sufficient resourcing during MG events, is vital. The aim of this retrospective register study was to investigate the impact of MG events on the workload of rescue and emergency medical service (EMS) personnel during events to enable more precise and sufficient deployment of these authorities’ operative resources. Methods The data from Finland covered of 25,124 EMS and rescue service missions during a three-year period (2015–2017), including data from nine MG events and reference material for the same weekdays two weeks before and after the event. The data were analysed through statistical and geospatial analyses. Results Our findings showed that missions increased in most events included in this study. Analysis of the missions’ reasons showed that the categories of violence, traffic accidents and other accidents and injuries increased during events, with violence-related missions showing the highest relative risk (RR 1.87, 95% CI 1.43–2.44). In the four-grade (A–D) urgency grading, the analysis showed an increase in category C missions and a decrease in non-urgent category D missions. The analysis indicated an increase in missions during the evening and night-time. The geospatial analysis revealed dense hotspots of missions in the vicinity of the event area. Conclusion The workload for EMS and rescue service personnel increases during MG events. Most of the increase is allocated to EMS staff, peaking in evening and night hours. The geospatial analysis showed hotspots of missions on the outskirts of the actual event area during events; thus, the workload can also increase for those authority resources that are not directly allocated to the event. Detailed information regarding workloads is valuable for the authorities that are responsible for resource planning and preparedness for MG events. Replicating the study internationally would improve the methodology for the future.

Disaster Preparedness Amongst Emergency Pharmacists for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™: A Cross-Sectional Survey

“…2,[27][28][29] They also could lead to delayed emergency responses and strain the resources of local emergency services. 30 Hence, implementing preparedness measures and action plans as well as ensuring resource planning and staff preparedness for any unexpected events is imperative. Disaster medicine is a discipline that incorporates emergency medicine and disaster management.…”

Research on cross regional emergency material scheduling algorithm based on seed optimization algorithm

“…If only the fitness value is used to screen individuals, automatically adjust the cross regional emergency material dispatching route, build an intelligent cross regional emergency material dispatching route network structure model 16 , and obtain the path selection rules of population diversity awareness as follows: where c represents the fitness value, u 0 represents the individual divergence, and H represents the pathway network structure, represents the diversification selection weights, represents the importance of transporting materials. In different regions of the solution space, analyze individual structural models and represent the clustering center of the intelligent CREMS route with a quaternion G 17 , denoted as . There are m intelligent CREMS route nodes, denoted as , … , and the departure time of vehicles at each key point is denoted as , … .…”

Emergency pharmacy workforce views and experience related to the provision of pharmaceutical care during mass gathering events: the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ experience

“…This could be attributed to the substantial health risks and pressure that accompany such events with the potential for a surge in demand for healthcare services that might strain the functioning of the host country's health system (2). Additionally, previous research showed that such events increase the workload especially for emergency medical services (3)(4)(5)(6). It may also cause delayed emergency responses via various mechanisms and stretch the resources of the local emergency services beyond their capacity (7).…”