Trial reportProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2018
Serious games may improve physician heuristics in trauma triage.
Trial report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04516044 (Long-term Followup of Effects of Customized Videogames on Physician Triage Practices), which is not on this map. Cited by 23 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Long-term Followup of Effects of Customized Videogames on Physician Triage Practices
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Motivation Theories and Constructs in Experimental Studies of Online Instruction: Systematic Review and Directed Content Analysis.JMIR medical education · 2025Pooled it
- Game design elements of serious games in the education of medical and healthcare professions: a mixed-methods systematic review of underlying theories and teaching effectiveness.Advances in health sciences education : theory and practice · 2024Pooled it
- The development of laparoscopic skills using virtual reality simulations: A systematic review.PloS one · 2021Pooled it
- An Educational Video Game in Trauma Triage at Nontrauma Centers: A Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2025Trial
- Inside the Black Box of Deliberate Practice: How do Coaches Coach to Improve Trauma Triage.The Journal of surgical research · 2024Trial
- Using a Video Game Intervention to Increase Hospitalists' Advance Care Planning Conversations with Older Adults: a Stepped Wedge Randomized Clinical Trial.Journal of general internal medicine · 2023Trial
- Testing a Novel Deliberate Practice Intervention to Improve Diagnostic Reasoning in Trauma Triage: A Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2023Trial
- Development and evaluation of a technology-enhanced simulation to measure physician decision making in trauma triage.PloS one · 2026Article
- Comparative Evaluation of Machine Learning and Specialist Physicians in Breast Care Triaging: A Real-World Observational Study.European journal of breast health · 2025Article
- Improving Social Bot Detection Through Aid and Training.Human factors · 2024Article
- Article
- Gamification in Critical Care Education and Practice.Critical care explorations · 2024Article
- On the advantages and disadvantages of virtual continuing medical education: a scoping review.Canadian medical education journal · 2023Article
- Artificial Intelligence in Emergency Medicine: Viewpoint of Current Applications and Foreseeable Opportunities and Challenges.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Review
- Testing the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effect of a novel deliberate practice intervention to reduce diagnostic error in trauma triage: a study protocol for a randomized pilot trial.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2022Article
- Outcomes after a Digital Behavior Change Intervention to Improve Trauma Triage: An Analysis of Medicare Claims.The Journal of surgical research · 2021Observational
- Involvement of End Users in the Development of Serious Games for Health Care Professions Education: Systematic Descriptive Review.JMIR serious games · 2021Article
- Development and implementation of a novel Web-based gaming application to enhance emergency medical technician knowledge in low- and middle-income countries.AEM education and training · 2021Article
- Conceptualizations of clinical decision-making: a scoping review in geriatric emergency medicine.BMC emergency medicine · 2020Article
- Serious games, a game changer in teaching neonatal resuscitation? A review.Archives of disease in childhood. Fetal and neonatal edition · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Trauma triage depends on fallible human judgment. We created two "serious" video game training interventions to improve that judgment. The interventions' central theoretical construct was the representativeness heuristic, which, in trauma triage, would mean judging the severity of an injury by how well it captures (or "represents") the key features of archetypes of cases requiring transfer to a trauma center. Drawing on clinical experience, medical records, and an expert panel, we identified features characteristic of representative and nonrepresentative cases. The two interventions instantiated both kinds of cases. One was an adventure game, seeking narrative engagement; the second was a puzzle-based game, emphasizing analogical reasoning. Both incorporated feedback on diagnostic errors, explaining their sources and consequences. In a four-arm study, they were compared with an intervention using traditional text-based continuing medical education materials (active control) and a no-intervention (passive control) condition. A sample of 320 physicians working at nontrauma centers in the United States was recruited and randomized to a study arm. The primary outcome was performance on a validated virtual simulation, measured as the proportion of undertriaged patients, defined as ones who had severe injuries (according to American College of Surgeons guidelines) but were not transferred. Compared with the control group, physicians exposed to either game undertriaged fewer such patients [difference = -18%, 95% CI: -30 to -6%,
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.