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. 2021 Aug 31;9(3):e27291.
doi: 10.2196/27291.

A Didactic Escape Game for Emergency Medicine Aimed at Learning to Work as a Team and Making Diagnoses: Methodology for Game Development

Laure Abensur Vuillaume #  1 , Garry Laudren #  2 , Alexandre Bosio #  3 , Pauline Thévenot #  4 , Thierry Pelaccia #  5   6 , Anthony Chauvin #  7
Affiliations

A Didactic Escape Game for Emergency Medicine Aimed at Learning to Work as a Team and Making Diagnoses: Methodology for Game Development

Laure Abensur Vuillaume et al. JMIR Serious Games. .

Abstract

Background: In the health care environment, teamwork is paramount, especially when referring to patient safety. We are interested in recent and innovative solutions such as escape games, which is a type of adventure game that may be highly useful as an educational tool, potentially combining good communication skills with successful gamification. They involve teams of 5 to 10 individuals who are "locked" in the same room and must collaborate to solve puzzles while under pressure from a timer.

Objective: The purpose of this paper was to describe the steps involved in creating and implementing an educational escape game. This tool can then be put into service or further developed by trainers who wish to use it for learning interprofessional collaboration. Therefore, we started with an experience of creating an educational escape game for emergency medicine teams.

Methods: We chose to develop an educational escape game by using 6 successive steps. First, we built a team. Second, we chose the pedagogical objectives. Third, we gamified (switched from objectives to scenario). Next, we found the human and material resources needed. Thereafter, we designed briefing and debriefing. Lastly, we tested the game.

Results: By following these 6 steps, we created the first ambulant educational escape game that teaches people, or nurses, doctors, and paramedics, working in emergency medicine to work as a team.

Conclusions: From a pedagogic point of view, this game may be a good tool for helping people in multidisciplinary fields (medical and paramedical teams) to learn how to work collaboratively and to communicate as a group. Above all, it seems to be an innovative tool that complements medical simulation-based learning and thus consolidates traditional education.

Keywords: education; educational technique; emergency medicine; emergency medicine training; escape game; game theories; games; pedagogical; serious games; simulation-based training; training techniques.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: The authors have completed the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' uniform disclosure form. They declare that (1) the submitted work has not been supported by any organization other than the funding agency listed above (eg, the French Society of Emergency Medicine), (2) they have no financial relationships with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous 3 years, and (3) they have no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Contents of the escape room that was used for the emergency medicine game in this study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Diary enigma.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Exterior of the 12-m² escape room that was used for the emergency-medicine game in this study.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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