Escape Room Enhanced Multi-professional Healthcare Training and Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Escape Room Enhanced Multi-professional Healthcare Training and Education

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

Context/background/objectives

Escape rooms are settings where teams of participants solve puzzles and riddles in a closed space with a particular theme to achieve predetermined goals, in a limited amount of time. Like serious-game-based approaches, they put the focus on interactional dynamics outside of the work context with its grown interaction patterns. This provides valuable insights on how teams work together. Exercises have large potentials for the learning of complex concepts. By discussing these concepts in the context of simple exercises, participants can let go of all the burden of their professional knowledge and concentrate on new concepts. In reflective discussions the new insights can and should be linked back to clinical practice. This form of learning is particularly attractive for generation Z students and can become an ideal tool for inter-professional, experiential learning. Although the notion of escape rooms is still new, it has been around for some time. The novelty in this project is to turn the experimental set-ups into ready to use (or ready to adapt packages) that can be used in different contexts. The material created and the guidance contained will allow broader community to use escape rooms for different purposes. The initial break-through of developing the idea will be supplemented with a follow through that is needed to turn an innovative idea into an actual innovation.
ESCAPE4HEALTH aims at creating scenarios for multi-professional, experiential training and education in healthcare; scenarios will also elaborate on themes related to pandemic. Escape rooms exploiting these scenarios are installed and set up in consortium institutions. Scenarios are also created in virtual/mixed/augmented reality environments allowing remote/distance training, thereby enabling mitigation of training in cases of pandemics.
ESCAPE4HEALTH explores the potential role of Escape Rooms in healthcare curricula and provides curricula enrichments and innovations to multi-professional education.

Pprofile of participants

ESCAPE4HEALTH is a 5 partner project. It builds upon the Medical Escape Room Game Experience by P4 in Copenhagen and expands the innovation of this approach both technically (by introducing virtual/mixed/augmented reality versions) and pedagogically (by introducing more scenarios, fitting curricula and probably linked with pandemic situations). It relies on the technical (IT) capacity of UPV and AUTH, and the co-creation exercises and Living Labs of Laurea, AUTH as well as experiences from the co-creation methodology of virtual reality resources of ERASMUS+ projects CoViRR and CEPEH. The consortium includes AMEE, a worldwide organisation with members in over 100 countries.

Description of activities/ methodology/results

Starting from an initial list of likely themes, we identify all important themes, relevant for curricula, build consensus and ensure the quality of the escape room scenarios and their virtual artefacts. We then co-design and implement scenarios for experiential training through user-centred design of scenarios and interfaces and their technical implementation in virtual environments. We use co-creative methodologies in order to build a solid creation pipeline for medical experiential content bringing together a network of academics, health educators and other stakeholders, including students.
Co-designing will be implemented with the stages of Double Diamond Model (Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver) based on Laurea’s experience and pedagogical/user-centric knowledge and all partners’ collaboration.
Once the scenarios are established, escape rooms are installed (both in analogue and digital/virtual modes), we systematically draw best practices for the adapted co-design and implementation methodology for Escape rooms, in order for this to be easily replicable by other European HEIs.
Feasibility and acceptance of Escape Rooms in healthcare curricula (as well as continuing multi-professional training and education) are analysed and recommendations for use of Escape Rooms in healthcare curricula and multi-professional training are released.

Impact envisaged
Capitalising on the innovation brought about by the use of escape room and the great potential of simulation, we help mitigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 crisis and potentially for future crisis for health education. To sustain the project beyond its duration, we exploit (open access) innovative practices in the digital era of healthcare training and the recent demand for remote training. Evaluation of its practice as well as the new guidelines to be produced will support current curricula and foster open education.

Potential longer term benefits
AMEE is key to ensuring the widest global dissemination, but also enabling publication of project educational guides as series of Best Evidence Medical Education as well as free webinars. The consortium will look to set up a Special Interest

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 275945 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE VALENCIA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• LAUREA-AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU OY
• ARISTOTELIO PANEPISTIMIO THESSALONIKIS
• Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE)
• REGION HOVEDSTADEN