MGMIMass Gathering Medicine

← Library

AI-DRAFTED — PHYSICIAN REVIEW IN PROGRESSThe citation for this entry was checked against Crossref and PubMed, but its summary and interpretation were drafted by an AI model from the published abstract and have not yet been individually read by a physician. Read the linked source before relying on this operationally.
Paper ✓ verified

Impacts on in-event, ambulance and emergency department services from patients presenting from a mass gathering event: A retrospective analysis[1]

Ranse J, Lenson S, Keene T, et al; Crilly J · 2019 · Emerg Med Australas

Summary

Retrospective tri-service analysis of one 20,000-participant Australian event: 197 first-aid presentations (9.85/1,000), 24 referred to the in-event health professional team (doctors/nurses/paramedics), of whom 15 returned to the event after IV fluids and/or antiemetics; only 7 (0.35/1,000) went to ambulance care and ED, where median stay was 7 hours with imaging/ventilator support, one operation, one ICU admission. Concludes the in-event model likely limited ambulance and ED usage, and the transported few were genuinely sick.

So what

The cleanest published demonstration of the escalation funnel working: 197 → 24 → 7, with the in-event professional tier returning 62.5% of its referrals to the event, and the ED tail proving appropriate triage (long stays, real interventions). This is the treat-in-place economics of Martin-Gill and Spigner traced across all three service tiers in one dataset — the citation for the "each tier absorbs" diagram MGMI's planning pages should draw.

Key findings

  • Escalation funnel: 197 first-aid → 24 professional-tier → 7 ambulance/ED
  • 62.5% of professional-tier referrals returned to event after IV/antiemetics
  • Transported patients genuinely sick: median ED stay 7h, imaging/ventilation, 1 OR, 1 ICU
  • In-event model credited with limiting ambulance and ED load

Read the paper