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Serious Games Recreating Nurses’ Clinical Reasoning and Priority Setting On MedSurg Unit

Image credit: Vial Signs Nursing by BreakAway Games

Vital Signs Nursing, developed by BreakAway Games, was selected as a finalist in the 2018 Serious Games Showcase and Challenge in the Business Category.

Vital Signs is a Med Surg series of 2D, single player, browser-based games from BreakAway that includes Vital Signs Pediatric, Vital Signs Nursing and Vital Signs: ED™.

Vital Signs Nursing was designed to recreate the clinical reasoning and priority setting of a nurse on a typical medical/surgical unit and exercise player’s decision making and prioritization under stress. The game drills on different nurse-specific procedures targeting both new nurses and nursing students. The game challenge is to effectively manage medical surgical patients in the stressful multipatient care environment.

In the game, the player must use the five steps of the nursing process (assess, diagnose, plan, implement, and evaluate) for multiple simultaneous realistic patient simulations under time pressure. While making essential care decisions, the player must also manage minor events designed to increase their critical thinking skills and priority setting abilities.

The player's performance is measured against an ideal case management process. Scoring information is provided across a number of critical dimensions - the application records the player’s choices throughout the simulation for post-play performance review.

Image credit: Vial Signs Nursing by BreakAway Games