Nurses like many other healthcare professionals are near constantly on the move. They are frequently called upon to apply their skills and knowledge in order to ensure the safety and comfort of their wards.

With smartphones and internet connectivity becoming commonplace, many institutions have tried to use mobile phones to allow nurses to practice their skills on the move.

Playware’s 3DHive.mobi platform has been utilised in two case studies by leading Institutions in Singapore that have successfully tested and adopted mobile games as a method for training nurses.

Case Study 1

Jurong Healthcare, Mobile virtual training platform improves productivity and delivery of nursing education

Study aimed to validate whether nursing education could be effectively delivered via a mobile application, so as to improve the reach of training and increase the number of nurses trained per in-service training module.

Method
– Virtual Nurse is a mobile application built on 3DHive.mobi and designed for training of nurses
– Aimed to facilitate learning through the simulation of clinical scenarios that require nurses to understand the context of the situation and make decisions
– A variety of gameplay was utilised to assess the nurses’ knowledge
– Comparative study between adoption of the mobile application and the attendance of conventional in-service classroom trainings
– Conducted in Oct 2015 to 1,584 nurses

Results
– 17% improvement in learning outcomes
– Improvement in median participation rate
– Approximately 720 contact hours avoided

Conclusion
– Nursing education can be conducted effectively through a mobile game application built on 3DHive.mobi
– JH Virtual Nurse was able to reach a large number of nurses without logistic constraints
– Able to train more nurses within the same period of time

(From the Singapore Medical Journal, Volume 57 Supplement 3 December 2016)
Case Study 2

Alice Lee Centre of Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore – Safe administration of blood transfusion for undergraduate nursing students using a 3Dhive gamelet

To design and evaluate the effectiveness of serious gaming in enhancing knowledge, confidence and skill performance of nursing students in management of blood transfusion.

Methodology
– Study population of 103 second-year undergraduate nursing students
– Clustered, Randomised Controlled Trial
– Learning Game was built using the 3DHive.mobi platform
– Divided in to one control group and one experimental group
– Baseline evaluation of participants’ knowledge and confidence on blood transfusion procedure conducted
– Experimental group played blood transfusion game
– Both groups were re-tested post intervention
– Experimental group evaluated learning via survey
– Participants from both groups were tested on skill performance on blood transfusion in a simulated environment
– Independent t-test, paired t-test and ANCOVA were used to measure each outcome variable

Findings
– Post-test Knowledge – Significant Improvement (p<0.001)
– Post-test Confidence – Significant Improvement (p<0.001)
– Participants’ Rating of Game – Positive

Conclusion
The study “revealed the effectiveness of serious games in enhancing knowledge and confidence of nursing students” and is a “promising approach to optimize learning when blended with hands-on simulation training”.

About 3DHive.Mobi
3Dhive.mobi was designed as a mobile-games for learning platform that focuses on the authentic practice of skills. Developed by Playware Studios Pte Ltd in a four-year collaboration with the Infocomm Development Authority and the National Research Foundation of Singapore, it has the features and functionalities that an enterprise needs to create and manage training as well up skilling of its workforce.