Use of Pandemic Escape Room to increase learner engagement in infection prevention education

Editor's Note

Escape Rooms, which were conceived as a social activity, yielded themselves as a low-cost, high-impact and effective tool for healthcare education during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study from the Central Texas Veterans Healthcare System finds.

The Pandemic Escape Room ran every half hour for 4 days, providing 48 opportunities for interactive learning for teams of 3 to 5 participants.

Participants were given a pandemic scenario and asked to select appropriate PPE before entering the Escape Room. Once inside, objectives included collaborating as a team to mitigate spread of the disease, evaluating surfaces that have a role in disease transmission, and demonstrating at least three occurrences of hand hygiene while completing duties.

Training also included collecting nasal swabs and demographic information from six patients and completing pre- and post-simulation surveys.

Voluntary education increased from an average of 20 clinical discipline participants per training to 189 clinical and nonclinical learners.

The Pandemic Escape Room yielded a high number of learners who frequently requested additional Escape Room offerings, the authors note.