A Serious Game for Anesthesia-Based Crisis Resource Management Training

Abstract

Simulation-based training has been widely adopted in medical education as a tool in the practice and development of skills within a safe, controlled, and monitored environment. However, significant cost and logistical challenges exist within traditional simulation practices. The rising popularity of gaming has seen the wide application of serious games to medical education and training. Serious gaming (and virtual simulation in general) offers a viable alternative to traditional training practices, offering students/trainees the opportunity to train until they reach a specific competency level in a safe, interactive, engaging, and cost-effective manner for effective skills transfer to the real world. Here we present a serious game for anesthesia-based crisis resource management (ACRM) training. The ACRM serious game provides trainees the opportunity to react to a simulated medical emergency within a virtual operating room while providing an interactive, and engaging training experience. Results of an experiment that was conducted to examine the usability (the ease of use of the serious game and its interface) of the serious game, and its ability to engage trainees, indicate that although improvements to the user interface can be made, it shows promise as an immersive and engaging complementary training tool.