With national events like the World Series or Super Bowl, hospitals in host cities expect and prepare for large crowds and an uptick in emergency visits. In contrast to the North Side of Chicago (which hosted its first World Series Game since 1945 last year), the 2017 Super Bowl is far from Houston's first rodeo.
In fact, an actual rodeo — the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which draws anywhere from 55,000 to over 100,000 people every day of its nearly three-week run — has prepared Houston hospitals for this moment, in addition to hurricanes and other weather events, as well as the 2004 Super Bowl.
The rodeo is "like hosting the Super Bowl every day for 20 days," says Jeremy Finkelstein, MD, medical director and section chief of emergency medicine at 1,119-bed Houston Methodist Hospital.
Another unique aspect of Houston hosting the Super Bowl is that NRG Stadium is roughly two miles from the largest medical complex in the world, meaning fans have plenty of hospitals nearby should they need help. The Texas Medical Center complex houses several large hospitals, including the only two adult Level I trauma centers in the city — Ben Taub Hospital and Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center — as well as Houston Methodist, CHI St. Luke's, Texas Children's Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center and several other medical facilities and academic partners.
Memorial Hermann is the official and exclusive healthcare provider of the 2017 Super Bowl, meaning it is sending more than 140 primary care physicians, nurses and athletic trainers to provide first aid on-site during Super Bowl week.
"We'll be ready to care for people at our on-site network of first-aid stations and medical tents, as well as expedite transport to our vast network of hospitals and specialty institutes in the Texas Medical Center and beyond," Benjamin Chu, MD, president and CEO of Memorial Hermann, said in a statement.
According to Dr. Finkelstein, large events usually cause a slight uptick in patients coming to Houston Methodist Hospital. People come for various reasons, like sprains and strains, dehydration or substance abuse issues such as intoxication or illicit drug use.
Because the Super Bowl isn't just a one-day event — there have been multiple events and concerts throughout the city tied to the Super Bowl — Houston Methodist "can't flex up staff on a daily basis," Dr. Finkelstein says. But the hospital did stock up on food, water and blood because of the big game.
Additionally, Houston Methodist is keeping cath lab and stroke teams in-house, in case it becomes difficult to reach the hospital for any reason. An executive management team will also be on-site during game day, but other staffing will remain routine, he says.
Prepare for the worst
Big crowds always bring a certain element of risk, and Houston Methodist used the Super Bowl as a way to "dust off the playbook" for mass casualty incidents, Dr. Finkelstein says. "There's no replacement for actually running through it."
For instance, Houston Methodist recently set up its mass decontamination tent to make sure everything was operational.
Furthermore, Dr. Finkelstein organized a call last week with hospitals in Boston that responded to the Boston Marathon bombing, like Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center, to glean insights from what they learned responding to the mass casualty event that other hospitals may not know to anticipate.
Beyond Houston Methodist's mass casualty incident plans, the other separate hospitals within Texas Medical Center have their own plans, as does TMC, the county, the region and the state.
So as the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons study playbooks and prepare to take the field Sunday, Dr. Finkelstein, Houston Methodist and the other TMC hospitals have studied their own playbooks and are ready for what the Super Bowl crowd may throw their way.