[Training healthcare teams of a multi-site university hospital on high-alert medication issues: Using an escape room].

Abstract

Objectives: High-Alert Medications represent a significant concern in clinical practice. The importance of raising awareness and training healthcare professionals appears essential for improving the quality and safety of care. Thus, an interactive and participatory educational format named escape room was employed in a multi-site University Hospital Center.

Methods: The escape room 'Never Events Enigma' was implemented across 4 hospitals. Collaboration between our department and quality unit of each hospital facilitated the determination of organizational modalities regarding registration and session scheduling, which were carried out by our mobile team. Each session included: initial knowledge assessment, gameplay, formative debriefing and satisfaction survey. Two months later, a follow-up knowledge assessment was conducted.

Results: The completion of 83 sessions enabled the training of 495 participants (average of 6 per team; minimum 2 and maximum 13). The average duration of a session was 1hour. The initial knowledge assessment revealed gaps among the various represented professions (average score 11.8/20). The satisfaction survey highlighted the relevance of this educational format. The post-training knowledge assessment demonstrated an improvement in the average score (17.2/20, gain of +5.4 points), but also its limitations, with a low response rate (25.7%).

Conclusion: The escape room proved effective for the desired pedagogical objectives. This playful format offers numerous advantages to engage a diverse audience, although it represents a time-consuming method for large-scale training in small groups and requires thorough organization and communication beforehand for the smooth running of sessions.