Medical Safety Assessment at Ski Resorts of the Russian Federation
Within recent years, the number of ski tourists in the world has been growing. Taking into account the barriers to abroad tourism in 2020–2021, in the coming years, a significant increase in the flow of ski tourists to ski resorts of Russia should be expected. At the same time, it should be emphasized that the level of injuries at Russian ski resorts remains quite high, one of the reasons for which is an insufficiently developed regulatory and legal framework for medical safety of ski resorts. The aim of the study is to classify ski resorts in Russia by level of their medical safety based on the developed criteria. Materials and research methods. A survey of 271 employees and visitors of ski resorts was carried out. According to its results and taking into account their own experience, the authors identified 20 criteria that affect medical safety of ski resorts. The specified criteria were divided into 5 groups: «Facility design», «Administration of ski resort», «Maintenance of routes», «Rescue service», «Medical assistance and medical evacuation». Research results and their analysis. A point scale for assessing medical safety of ski resorts is proposed with the cumulative final results defined as: «insufficient level», «minimum sufficient level», «moderate level», «maximum level». According to these criteria, an assessment was made of 21 ski resorts in Russia and in the neighboring countries, as a result of which only 4 ski resorts (19%) corresponded to the maximum level of medical safety; to the moderate — 16 ski resorts (76.2%). These results generally coincided with the opinion of the expert community, which supports the effectiveness of the developed classification. Conclusions are made about the need to introduce this classification into the system of assessment and of certification of ski resorts and about the necessity to widely communicate the results of the assessment to visitors of ski resorts.