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Serious Games Improving Communications That Impact Patient Safety

Glimpse Web Dashboard

Glimpse (Game to Learn Important Communication Methods for Patient Safety Enhancement) is a web-based, transmedia game and storytelling platform designed to teach healthcare professionals strategies for improving ineffective inter-professional communications that can impact patient safety.

Developed by the University of Texas at Dallas, Glimpse introduces an educational curriculum through episodic narrative and gameplay. Players are afforded opportunities to learn about and experiment with situational awareness and power-gradient barriers that harm effective communications. Players learn from feedback on game choices by using a “glimpse” mechanic to gain insight into a character’s behavior.

In Glimpse you gain or lose points depending on how well you communicate.

Individual and team performances are scored and displayed on a web dashboard to foster game competition.

The game is intended for physicians and nurses who work together in a hospital. Perspective sharing in the game allows nurses to play as physicians and vice-versa so that they get a glimpse into each other’s roles and learn to adapt their styles accordingly.


Glimpse was selected as a finalist in the 2013 Serious Game Showcase and Challenge in the Business Category, one of the seven award categories of the SGS&C, at the 2013 Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) held in Orlando, FL, December 2013.