A Serious Game to Raise Awareness Among Future Patients About Day-of-Surgery Cancellations

Background:Same-day surgery cancellations are a persistent and societally relevant challenge, affecting operating room efficiency, patient trust, and health care professionals' workload. In the Netherlands, many cancellations result from nonmedical system constraints such as staffing shortages and scheduling dependencies, factors that are rarely addressed in patient-facing education. This study explores a novel approach to expectation management by using a serious board game to make the complexity of surgery planning tangible for everyday individuals who may encounter surgical care in the future.Methods:In an exploratory pilot study, a quasi-experimental design compared an intervention group (n = 9) who played a serious game simulating hospital resource management with a control group (n = 9) who received a standard preoperative brochure. Pre- and post-intervention questionnaires assessed understanding of surgery cancellations, empathy toward health care professionals, and anticipated anxiety.Results:Results showed stronger gains in perceived understanding among game participants compared with the control group, including a statistically significant shift in perceptions of cancellations occurring after hospital admission. Directional increases in empathy toward health care workers were also observed following gameplay, while anticipated anxiety levels remained largely stable across groups.Conclusions: These findings highlight the potential of serious games as a complementary, public-facing educational tool for conveying system-level health care constraints that are difficult to communicate through traditional materials. By fostering awareness and perspective-taking around surgery planning and cancellations, this approach addresses a timely societal issue and opens new avenues for the use of serious games in health care education and public engagement.