Clinical decision making through game-based learning: Observations within a Radiography Escape Room

The paper reports observations following the design and implementation of an immersive multi-sensory escape room as a novel professional, game-based workshop to foster clinical decision making in diagnostic radiography.

The two authors developed an educational Radiography Escape Room. Participants successfully completed tasks within the radiography escape room, with some finishing the tasks within the sixty-minute time frame and subsequently escaping the room. By completing the story plot of the hospital shift as a radiographer through a series of sequential, radiography-based puzzles, participants tested their specialised knowledge and professional capabilities within a time constrained simulated clinical environment.

Escape room deployment in radiography education allowed participants to enhance problem solving skills requiring collaboration and effective teamwork to make simulated clinical decisions. During the post escape room debriefing session, participants anecdotally indicated that participating in the escape room required them to draw upon their own prior knowledge and skills and fostered problem solving, clinical reasoning and justification, and collaborative teamwork.

Escape rooms offer the potential to be used as an effective pedagogical tool in radiography education and training, complementing the growing educational use of escape rooms within other healthcare disciplines. Carefully curated, evidence-based scenarios and thorough testing are essential for successful implementation.