News Release

Improving physicians' judgment with video games

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Physicians' judgments during triage often relies on heuristics, or mental shortcuts, which are generally useful but can occasionally fail. Deepika Mohan, Baruch Fischhoff, and colleagues designed two interventions for improving heuristic judgment when physicians decide whether to transfer patients to a trauma center. The interventions consisted of video games that involved making trauma triage decisions based on principles from the American College of Surgeons guidelines, and that provided feedback on players' diagnostic accuracy. In a randomized controlled trial, 320 emergency medicine physicians were randomly assigned to receive one of the video games, conventional text-based educational materials, or no intervention. After using the assigned intervention for at least 2 hours, participants completed a virtual triage simulation. The percentage of under-triaged patients-those who had traumatic injuries but were not transferred to a trauma center-in the simulation was 17-18 points lower among participants who used either of the video games than among those who received no intervention. Under-triage rates did not differ significantly between participants who received the conventional intervention and those who received no intervention. According to the authors, video games might help reduce errors in trauma triage and other scenarios.

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Article #18-05450: "Serious games may improve physician heuristics in trauma triage," by Deepika Mohan et al.

MEDIA CONTACT: Allison Hydzik, University of Pittsburgh, PA; tel: 412-647-9975, 412-559-2431; e-mail: hydzikam@upmc.edu; Baruch Fischhoff, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA; tel: 412-268-3246; e-mail: baruch@cmu.edu


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