MobiHealth News: How a Missouri health system prepared for the World Cup
By Jessica Hagen
As the 2026 FIFA World Cup brings millions of fans to cities across North America, hospitals have had to prepare for more than an influx of visitors. Large events place added demands on emergency departments and require health systems to prepare for potential mass-casualty incidents, infectious disease threats and other public health challenges.
Dr. Jennifer Watts, vice president and associate chief medical officer of acute care and inpatient services at Children's Mercy in Kansas City, and Bree Bush, general manager for Command Center and CareIntellect at GE HealthCare, sat down with MobiHealthNews to discuss how Children's Mercy used technology to prepare for one of the world's biggest sporting events.
MobiHealthNews: What is it about large events like the World Cup that causes an increase in emergency room visits?
Dr. Jennifer Watts: Anytime you have any of the large event gatherings like this, you have an influx of people into the city.
Just because you travel to certain places doesn't mean you stop getting sick, and people still get hurt, and people still have appendicitis, and people still have all the same things that they normally have on a day-to-day basis.
So, when we increase the population volume, our healthcare needs to increase in order to match that for acute injuries; things that happen every day, they're just also now happening more frequently with more people.
You also have the risk of other things happening too that come as a result of having large gatherings. You always think about bringing in people from other countries too; that raises your risk for infectious disease, increases your risk of communicable disease and other things that come that people in the U.S. may not be used to seeing.
And then also anytime we have celebrations, anytime we have large event gatherings, you also have a risk of civil unrest, and when that occurs, you have potential for significant issues in the population at that gathering, which also stresses the healthcare environments.
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