Event Medicine

Interested in our services?

To request LifeFlight Event Medicine coverage for your event, please complete our request form here: LifeFlight Event Medicine General Request Form.

If you have questions regarding your event coverage, please email eventmedicine@vumc.org.

Our team works to meet the needs of you, our client, so we staff dynamically based on your needs. If you are uncertain of appropriate coverage, please reach out, and we will work with you to ensure you have the appropriate coverage you need to keep your patrons safe. 

Planning Your Event Medical Coverage? 

Planning medical coverage is probably not your favorite part of planning your event. That’s okay because we love planning event medical coverage. We will help you plan your medical coverage based on a number of factors. Some key pieces to consider are:

  • Outdoor Events:
    • Cooling/Warming measures
    • Hydration Stations
    • Shade Availability
    • Terrain
    • Anticipated Weather
  • Patrons:
    • Age
    • Ability
    • Potential for Excitement
    • Crowd Size
  • Alcohol Availability
  • Size of the venue or event footprint
  • Location of the Event

Services

LifeFlight Event Medicine has a broad array of services to help you plan your sporting event, outdoor festival, concert, or a variety of other special events. We can arrange staffing and pricing to suit your needs, from ambulance standby with basic emergency medical technicians to advanced trained paramedics, up to critically care trained flight nurses and advanced nurse practitioners.

Our team has established event medicine policies and procedures to provide event spectators with injury and illness medical care. Specially trained EMTs and paramedics are in direct contact with physicians and nurses at Vanderbilts Emergency Department, offering everything to make your event safe and successful. In addition, Vanderbilt LifeFlight maintains a 24-hour emergency communication center, which can help facilitate any request from the event medicine staff.

Here are some common services that we offer:

  • AEMT or Paramedic Medical Standby
    • Single personnel standbys work great for low-key events where there’s a low risk for trauma, and the main concern is medical emergencies and slips, trips, and falls. We have the capability to provide basic care or advanced-level care with this arrangement. The limitation is that we can start care, but we cannot provide transportation to the emergency department if needed. 
  • Medical Standby + Ambulance
    • This setup is commonly used for sporting events. This allows us to provide ambulance transport to anyone having a medical or traumatic emergency while leaving at least 1 medical professional available at the event during that transport. This allows gameplay or your main activity to continue. It’s important to consider your patrons or spectators when making these arrangements. 
  • Event Roamers + First Aid Tents + Ambulance Coverage
    • This arrangement allows us to have medical roamers (Paramedics and/or AEMTs) roam throughout your event area and respond to the scene of any onsite emergency while we have clearly marked and staffed First Aid tents placed within the footprint of your event. All of these medical professionals remain onsite throughout your event, and if ambulance transport is needed, we can quickly provide transportation to an emergency department. 

These are the most common set-up for our smaller events. These arrangements can be modified or specialized to include:

  • Bike Responders
    • Our Bike Team is made up of AEMTs, Paramedics, Nurses, and Advanced Practitioners. This specialized group is great for navigating large, crowded footprints and providing initial onsite care. 
  • Rescue Carts
    • Our Rescue carts are cot-mounted ATVs that are great for quickly responding within the event footprint and transporting patients to First Aid tents for care or to an ambulance to be transported to the emergency department. 
  • Rehab Bus
    • Our Rehab Bus was custom-built to provide air-conditioned onsite medical care. The Rehab bus has seating for 12 and beds for 2 patients at a time. It also has a ramp to help on/offload sick or injured patients and a large awning that allows us to set up progressive cooling measures. 
  • Command Bus
    • Communication across an event is key to having a successful event. Our Command Bus is set up to ensure you have a unified communication center (unified command center) so that all service lines can report to one location. This allows medical, security, and guest services to respond appropriately and quickly. A common example is a guest service member notices a patron having a medical emergency so they radio it to their dispatcher, who is sitting right beside the medical dispatcher and security dispatcher. This allows for a quick response to service needs. 
  • Advanced Medical Providers
    • We have physicians and flight nurse practitioners that are available to provide advanced care onsite at your event. This allows for more advanced care, such as sutures, onsite rehydration, and general treatment and release that normally require an ED trip. Having an onsite advanced provider allows for the highest level of care that can be provided in the field.

Services

LifeFlight Event Medicine provides medical services to AEMTs, paramedics, nurses, advanced providers, and physicians. Our staffing is dynamic, and we work to appropriately staff your event with the level of care needed. 

AEMTs are advanced emergency medical technicians. The AEMT certification is designed to prepare the team member to provide life-saving care in a pre-hospital setting.  AEMTs are taught to be adaptable and find solutions that are best for their patients in medical and traumatic emergencies. This makes AEMTs the perfect team member to work your event.

Paramedics are AEMTs that have received more advanced training that allows them to provide excellent pre-hospital emergency care at a higher level to include more capabilities in pain management, assessment, trauma care, and cardiac care. 

Nurses are trained to work in a hospital setting, but all of our LifeFlight Event Medicine nurses have experience in the emergency room and critical care areas which makes them an excellent addition to our team at your event. 

Advanced providers and physicians provide the highest level of care in the pre-hospital setting. Our LifeFlight nurse practitioners are trained in emergency medicine and are part of our flight crew with years of experience. Our physicians are all emergency medicine trained and work in emergency departments. This makes them the best way to extend our team and provide advanced care onsite at your event. 

More Than Just Medications

Most clients request LifeFlight Event Medicine for the potential medical and traumatic emergencies that can occur at their events, but we do more than that.  Every event we provide coverage for receives more than just emergency coverage. Your staff and patrons can also have minor needs for small cuts, headaches, or other items they may forget when they arrive at your event. We provide the following over-the-counter medications and supplemental items for free to your staff and patrons:

  • Aspirin
  • Tylenol
  • Ibuprofen
  • Diphenhydramine (Benadryl)
  • Calcium Carbonate (tums)
  • Band-aids
  • Antibiotic Ointment
  • Sunscreen 
  • Ear plugs
  • Feminine products
  • Blood Pressure checks

About LifeFlight Event Medicine

The Event Medicine division of Vanderbilt LifeFlight was started in the Fall of 2008 when Vanderbilt Medical Center became the official healthcare provider of the Nashville Predators. Vanderbilt LifeFlight Event Medicine provides EMT and paramedic-level EMS (emergency medical services) for team members and spectators at all home games for the Nashville Predators. In addition to the Nashville Predators, Vanderbilt LifeFlight Event Medicine provides EMS coverage (including ambulance standby) for all events at the Bridgestone Arena, Vanderbilt Football, Nashville Sounds Baseball, Vanderbilt Basketball, Vanderbilt Lacross, Cross Country, and Track and Soccer, and works closely with Vanderbilt Sports Medicine. The team is available to provide coverage at your next event or public gathering.