Using Serious Games to Increase the Implementation of Trauma Triage Guidelines: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Area of Science:

• Emergency Medicine
• Health Professions Education
• Geriatric Trauma Care

Background:

• Physician adherence to clinical guidelines, especially in time-sensitive trauma triage for older adults, remains suboptimal.
• Current methods to improve adherence are lacking, highlighting a critical gap in geriatric emergency care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate if a theory-based serious game enhances emergency physician adherence to trauma triage guidelines for older adults.
• To address the challenge of improving guideline compliance in a high-stakes medical setting.

Main Methods:

• A randomized clinical trial involving 800 emergency physicians at US nontrauma centers was conducted.
• The intervention group received game-based training, while the control group received usual education.
• The primary outcome was undertriage of severely injured Medicare patients aged 65 years and older.

Main Results:

• The serious game intervention group showed a significantly lower proportion of undertriaged severely injured older adults (49%) compared to the usual education group (57%).
• No significant differences were observed in overtriage or composite outcomes (30-day mortality/readmission).

Conclusions:

• Theory-based serious games can effectively decrease undertriage in emergency departments for severely injured older adults.
• This intervention offers a promising, low-cost method to improve adherence to trauma triage guidelines.