A model driven approach to the design of a gamified e-learning system for clinical guidelines

Abstract

Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) are indispensable in the practice of evidence-based medicine. However, the cost of effective CPG dissemination strategies is prohibitive and not cost-effective. Therefore, scalable strategies using available technology are needed. We describe a formal model-driven approach to design a gamified e-learning system for clinical guidelines. We employ gamification to increase user motivation and engagement in the training of guideline content. Our approach involves the use of models for different aspects of the system, an entity model for the clinical domain, a workflow model for the clinical processes and a game model to manage the training sessions. A game engine instantiates a training session by coupling the workflow and entity models to automatically generate questions based on the data in the model instances. Our approach is flexible and adaptive as it allows for easy updates of the guidelines, integration with different device interfaces and representation of any guideline.