CatCare: Designing a serious game to foster hand hygiene compliance in health care facilities

Lack of proper hand hygiene is often the source of hospital acquired infections. Despite many efforts, on average, health care workers still perform hand hygiene in less than 50% of the occasions in which they must. Serious games have been used successfully to achieve behavioral change in other health care domains. In order to tackle the complex problem of hand hygiene compliance we followed a design science research approach combining the build-phase with three evaluation cycles. In this paper, we present a preliminary design of a serious game to explore the possibilities of achieving better hand hygiene compliance of health care workers

Possible benefits of gamification for improving surgical patients' quality of care

´This paper considers the potential benefits of gamification from the perspective of surgical patients' quality of care. There is little published data on gamifying the work of healthcare professionals even though the use of serious games in healthcare has been growing. Literature on the quality of care shows that patients are often satisfied with the care they have received. However, research indicates that deficiencies exist in patient education, in patients' opportunities to participate in and have impact on decision making regarding their care, and in prevention and management of complications. Workplace culture is significantly connected with the incidence of patient complications. Gamification of healthcare workers' daily work routines could have positive effects on nurses' ownership and the meaningfulness of their work, and on the prevention and management of complications, which would in turn improve the quality of care for surgical patients. In this paper, a hypothetical gamification case is presented and directions for future research are discussed.Peer reviewe

Gamification, Geolocation and Sensors for Employee Motivation Towards Energy Conservation at the Workplace

In an era of significant technological advancements, as well as dramatic changes in the business environment, the state of the workforce seems to remain problematic, with regards to motivation. Albeit prevailing societal clichés, that often seem to promote the idea that ‘the modern workplace provides for a far better experience than in the past’; the truth remains that modern employees bear a significant resemblance to their ancestors – regarding the emotional burden their jobs instil on them – and remain, in their majority, unmotivated. Gamification, a relatively new instrument in the “orchestra of motivation”, offers a promising alternative to the strict corporate rules and policies that usually dictate the employees’ conduct, by adhering to their intrinsic motivation. Simultaneously, two promising technological giants have risen, to invisibly, as well as ubiquitously accompany us in our every move. On one hand, the advancement of geolocation technologies has led to the introduction of location-based services and custom content delivery. On the other hand, sensors of all types and flavours, installed to measure countless parameters of our surroundings, the workplace included. Through our study, we aim to investigate the effect of the application of these three technologies – Gamification, Geolocation and Sensors – isolated, or in concert, on employee motivation towards a common goal – energy conservation at the workplace

A Qualitative Case Study Exploring Hand-Hygiene Standards in an Intensive Care Unit

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are infections that occur in patients during their time of care in a hospital. Considerable emphasis is currently placed on reducing HAIs through improving hand-hygiene (HH) compliance among healthcare professionals because HAIs are a critical challenge to public health in the United States. By focusing on meeting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention HH standards, the purpose of this qualitative research was to explore how noncompliance with these standards and lack of technology usage affect HAIs in the intensive care unit. Additionally, the goal of this research was to explore behavioral factors and best practices that influence compliance rates in intensive care units. Thereafter, the researcher provided recommendations for healthcare leadership to address the phenomenon of HAI

Serious electronic games as behavioural change interventions in healthcare-associated infections and infection prevention and control: a scoping review of the literature and future directions

Background The uptake of improvement initiatives in infection prevention and control (IPC) has often proven challenging. Innovative interventions such as ‘serious games’ have been proposed in other areas to educate and help clinicians adopt optimal behaviours. There is limited evidence about the application and evaluation of serious games in IPC. The purposes of the study were: a) to synthesise research evidence on the use of serious games in IPC to support healthcare workers’ behaviour change and best practice learning; and b) to identify gaps across the formulation and evaluation of serious games in IPC. Methods A scoping study was conducted using the methodological framework developed by Arksey and O’Malley. We interrogated electronic databases (Ovid MEDLINE, Embase Classic + Embase, PsycINFO, Scopus, Cochrane, Google Scholar) in December 2015. Evidence from these studies was assessed against an analytic framework of intervention formulation and evaluation. Results Nine hundred sixty five unique papers were initially identified, 23 included for full-text review, and four finally selected. Studies focused on intervention inception and development rather than implementation. Expert involvement in game design was reported in 2/4 studies. Potential game users were not included in needs assessment and game development. Outcome variables such as fidelity or sustainability were scarcely reported. Conclusions The growing interest in serious games for health has not been coupled with adequate evaluation of processes, outcomes and contexts involved. Explanations about the mechanisms by which game components may facilitate behaviour change are lacking, further hindering adoption

Occupational Safety and Health Training for Undergraduates Nursing Students: A Spanish Pilot

Most of blood borne and airborne pathogens are highly contagious, harmful and have prevalence among healthcare workers. In this group, healthcare students, especially nursing undergraduates, have even higher risk to be exposed and suffered a contagious accident. One of the main pillars to prevent exposure to such pathogens and decrease accidents seems to be through education. A prospective observational educational research focused on quantifying the students’ knowledge, and prevention culture was carried out. The educational approach based on the development of a technological tool, its integration in the students’ education, and posterior assessment. The Chi-square, ANOVA, Kruskal–Wallis, Man–Whitney U, and Spearman correlations were used to determine the effect of such educational methodology. The results, previous to the integration of the educational approach, showed differences between the elementary and proficient knowledge and correct procedure in each academic year (p < 0.05), being the best year the third academic year. The mean of elementary knowledge among second year students after the inclusion of the educational methodology improved for 2017/2018 with a mean of 7.5 (1.11) and in 2018/2019 with 7.87 (1.34). This study argued that the educational approach proposed could improve the prevention culture and knowledge among students and future healthcare professionals