Action-time-controlled tabletop gamification improves physician‒nurse collaborative emergency room evacuation training

This article is an example of Lessons from the Field highlighting the practical implementation of a novel time-controlled mechanism in the gamification of emergency department evacuation training via tabletop exercise. Tabletop exercise is one of the most common drill types for disaster preparedness. It is easy to use, effective, and low in cost, but it has some shortcomings. For example, its lack of authenticity is often criticized. We add a time-control mechanism to the tabletop exercise and use settings similar to real events in an attempt to increase the authenticity of the tabletop exercise and the learning effect. We completed a 3-h tabletop gamification of emergency room evacuation, which included a time control mechanism. Medical staff in our emergency department were asked to join this tabletop training. We evaluated the effectiveness of the time-control tabletop exercise through the results of the pretest and posttests and feedback from the participants. A total of 97 emergency medical staff from the Emergency Department of Cheng Kung University Hospital, including 64 nurses, 29 emergency doctors and four nurse practitioners, participated in this tabletop exercise. After experiencing the time-control tabletop exercise, the participants significantly improved their approach to mass casualty incidents, their method for evacuating patients, and their triage skills. The correct answer rate for the pretest and post-test rose from 68.75% to 94.33% with statistically significant. The feedback from the participants also showed that the time-control tabletop exercise was interesting and could increase learning motivation. The time-control mechanism had a positive impact on the learning effect. It increased the reality of tabletop exercises, promoted participants' learning motivation, and improved their performance on the test.