Mass gathering medical care: to calculate the Medical Usage Rate of Galway Races.

This research paper studies the Medical Usage Rate (MUR) of the Galway Races, a popular horse-racing festival in Ireland, by retrospectively analyzing the medical records from the last 11 years of the event, with the goal of creating a predictive model for future MUR estimations.

The Galway Races and its Medical Usage Rate (MUR)

• In this study, the researchers looked into the Galway Races, a highly popular horse-racing festival held in Ireland during the last week of July each year. This event sees a participation of about 180,000 attendees over its 7 day duration.
• The Medical Usage Rate (MUR) is a measure of the demand for medical care at mass gathering events. In this case, the MUR for the Galway Races was calculated by examining the medical records from the previous 11 years of the event (1997 to 2007).
• After analyzing this data, the research found that the Galway Races has an MUR of 3.67 patients per ten thousand. This figure was found by taking the total number of medical incidents and dividing it by the total number of attendees (per ten thousand), indicating the scale of medical services needed during such mass gatherings.

Development of a Predictive Model

• The researchers not only computed the MUR of past Galway Races but also sought to develop a model that could predict the MUR for future outings of the event. This would enable better planning and allocation of medical resources during the festival.
• For instance, by using the data from the past 10 years, they calculated a predictive MUR prior to the 2008 Galway Races. Upon completing this event, they compared the estimated figures to the actual ones and found them to be comparable. This suggests that the developed model is reliable and can accurately predict the MUR for future races held at Galway. Hence it would aid in better medical preparedness for such large gatherings.