Large-scale, mobile and technology-enhanced serious game for interprofessional education: pilot study and lessons learnt

Figures & data

Table 1. IPE serious game: Storyline, goal, rules, and mechanics of the game.

Narrative hook and goal	Eva, a 22-year old female patient, has just disappeared from the intensive care unit where she was about to die after a tragic accident. Eva is pregnant and diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Students have been called upon to support healthcare teams overwhelmed by the flu pandemic. Their mission: find the missing person and find out what happened.
Rules of the game	Students were given an orientation map showing the location of the 10 stations in the health care network, allegedly the patient’s mobile telephone recent traces in the city. They were expected to work as a team to decide on a strategy for exploring the stations. At each station, they had to scan QR codes with their mobile telephones to access multimedia resources describing the healthcare setting, the tasks and the game instructions (Table 2). At the end of the game, students were instructed to conduct a self-debriefing of their team’s work during the day and to share their key learning points on a virtual dashboard (Padlet®).
Mechanics of the game	Using the map, students were free to self-determine the chronological order of the themed stations they planned to visit, meaning there were a number of ways to find the solution (autonomy). Should they succeed, they were rewarded with cues that gradually unveiled the mystery of the lost patient (cascading information). Their decisions had consequences on their ability to finish the game given the time constraint (branching scenario). Teams had to race against the clock (no competition mechanism).

Table 2. IPE serious game blueprint: Professional and interprofessional focus, station location, learning tasks and gaming activities.

Learn from/about (Who?)	Station location (Where?)	Learning tasks (What?)	Gaming activities (How?)
Dieticians	Youth health service	Calculate the amount of sugar in different ingredients Explore an obesity awareness campaign	Quiz
Medical radiology technicians	Medical imaging center	Name imaging technological devices Rank them according to their irradiation risk	Picture quiz
Midwives	Community birth center	Consult a standard obstetric record Calculate pregnancy due date	Sim. practice (obstetric wheel) Hidden clue game, crossword
Interprofessional (physicians and nurses)	Geriatric emergency room	Practice an ABC primary survey	Sim. practice (manikin) Secret code game
Physicians	Primary care medicine office	Use a self-monitoring blood glucose device Interpret results in a blood glucose record	Simulated practice (glucometer)
Nurses	Community nursing service	Identify fall hazards in the household	Guess the picture quiz
Physiotherapists	Physiotherapy office	Measure the range of motion of different joints	Sim practice (goniometer) Secret code game
Pharmacists	Community pharmacy	Identify the role and practice of pharmacists in the dispensing and use of medicines	“Unlock the box” game Secret code game
Interprofessional (all)	Innovation center (hospital)	Experience cognitive biases and impact of human factors in health care	Visual tests, video demos
Interprofessional (all)	Interprofessional simulation center	Lift and transfer of a physically disabled or unconscious patient	Simulated practice (manikin) Crossword game

Table 3. Student self-assessment of the IPE serious game (N = 366, response rate 60.7%).

Survey items	Strongly agree and agree
I learnt more about the healthcare system	67.7%
I better understood the respective roles of healthcare professionals	68.8%
I am more aware of the scope of practice of each health profession	64.6%
Through this experience, I experienced interprofessional teamwork	81.3%
I enjoyed participating in the adventure	75.8%
I was able to take an active part in the progress of our adventure	88.4%
I appreciated that our team was autonomous during the adventure	92.4%
I found this an original way of discovering interprofessional practice	86.8%

Table 4. Student perception of the IPE serious game: Most illustrative quotations from survey and team debriefing (Online Virtual Dashboard).

Challenge	Illustrative quotes
Educational	I loved this game in the city! It was fun and I discovered places I didn’t know about. I learned more about how different settings the health system work. This allowed me to gain a better understanding of the different professions and to work together toward a common goal. This activity was useful to discover teamwork and how to collaborate effectively. These activities quickly generated communication and collaboration between students.
Organizational	The course was immersive and challenging! The puzzles had an adequate level of difficulty, and the quality of the story-telling showed that it was carefully designed. There were bottlenecks in the stations, there were many teams… The fact that we were numerous sometimes spoiled the immersive experience: we could hear the other groups too much. At first, it was quite complicated to understand what we had to do. The different activities should have been more interconnected. The links between the story and certain stations were not very clear. We have not necessarily seen clues that were related to the resolution of the adventure.
Technological	The game was very good and modern with QR codes, but we should not do so much reading It was nice to be alone, to make it on our own without asking for help. Be sure to lock the web-pages to avoid spoiling the end of the day! The interface was not user-friendly, it was complex to access the documents again It was difficult to hear the audio content when we were outside … needs headphones, like audio guides Too bad we had to use the smartphone all the time, it prevented real communication between us It’s a constraint to have a phone with an Internet connection … I didn’t have one.

Data availability statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to ethical reasons.