• Emerg Med J · Aug 2013

    Are we ready? Preparedness of acute care providers for the Rugby World Cup 2011 in New Zealand.

    • Sultan Al-Shaqsi, David McBride, Robin Gauld, Ammar Al-Kashmiri, and Abdullah Al-Harthy.
    • Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. alssu455@student.otago.ac.nz
    • Emerg Med J. 2013 Aug 1;30(8):611-4.

    UnlabelledNew Zealand is hosting the Rugby World Cup (RWC) 2011. It is the largest sporting event in New Zealand's history, with around 70,000 fans estimated to visit the country from September to October 2011. This influx of tourists will have an impact on its already stretched healthcare services. The preparedness of New Zealand's healthcare system to handle this mass event is unclear.ObjectivesThe two main objectives of this study were (1) to determine the perceived preparedness of acute care providers in New Zealand to respond to the healthcare demands of RWC 2011; and (2) to determine the factors associated with perceived strong preparedness among acute care providers in New Zealand.MethodA cross-sectional survey of 1500 doctors, nurses and ambulance officers working in acute care services in New Zealand was conducted between June 2010 and March 2011.Results911 surveys were completed (response rate 60.7%). Only 12.7% of acute care providers felt they were prepared to deal with possible health issues arising from RWC 2011. Perceived preparedness was highest among ambulance officers and lowest among providers in intensive care units (16.3% vs 4.1%, p<0.01). Acute care providers who were aware of their role in a mass emergency were more likely to report preparedness with a prevalence OR of 3.5 and a 95% CI of 2.1 to 5.7.ConclusionOnly 12.7% of acute care providers in New Zealand perceived preparedness for RWC 2011. Perceived preparedness followed a stepwise decline from prehospital services, emergency department, to surgery and then finally to intensive care services. This indicates that current preparedness activities are focusing on prehospital emergency services and neglecting surgical and intensive care services. Awareness about the role of acute care providers during emergencies, training and previous experience were associated with perceived strong preparedness for RWC 2011.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…