Gaming Your Way To
Improved Health
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Gamification in Healthcare: Video Games Just
Got Healthier 💪
By providing rewards and a competitive setting,
gamification integrates games into environments where they
are not often found
Presently, gamification is common in domains of education,
marketing, fitness, productivity, and is progressively gaining
traction in field of healthcare too
In healthcare, it is about driving engagement, providing
incentives and intrinsic motivators to enable participation and
motivation to influence health results
Urgent care and emergency clinic visits have been shown to
reduce by 77% as a result of gamification in healthcare
settings
During the pandemic, scientists identified game patterns and
mechanics to understand COVID and develop vaccines
Sources: Gamification as Online Teaching Strategy During COVID-19: A Mini-Review. Front Psychol. 2021;12:648552
Health Point launched a program to reward
1978-89
people for healthy behavior
From Playstations To Prescriptions
Health Quest by Microsoft, an interactive CD-
1993-96 ROM game that taught diabetic patients about
their condition through puzzles
Hope Labs introduced Re-Mission to help
teenagers with Cancer
2003-07
Badge Ville, Bunchball, Ripple started to
emerge and offer gamification services to
different companies
Zombie Run by Six to Start was introduced to
motivate users to run
2011-15
Super Better was launched to help users
manage depression, anxiety and personal
growth
2020- First FDA approved video game EndeavorRX
present
by Akili Interactive
Sources: History, Htech
Games sneaking into Healthcare
Easier Diagnostic Provides a simpler
Processes approach to medicine
thus reducing fear
associated with it
Increased motivation, Rising digitalization People are accepting
participation from and technology digital means to keep a
patients in treatment adoption is expected track on their health data
procedure to boost the market as it is more accessible
Improvement rates in patients across various
segments using video games
69%
59%
50%
46%
42% 42%
39%
Psychological Physical Physical Clinician Health Pain Disease Self-
Therapy Therapy Activity Skill Education Distraction Management
Sources: Healthcare, MPO
Gamification is powering up in Healthcare
rapidly, the magic of the elixir...
GR 25%
CA
$38.42
$10.19 BN
$6.33 BN
BN
2019 2020 2028
Gamification in healthcare Increasing digitization and
apps is increasing use of dependence on technology
modern smart devices
THE
Gamification’s fun factor ELIXIR Flexibility factor allows
boosts morale & helps modify gamification to be used
user behaviors, thus, across various fields within
improving health outcomes healthcare domain
Sources: Digital Health, Market
Gamification goes Multi Genre-ational
Fitness
Fitbit uses reward system and competition to motivate better gym performances and step counts
Physical Therapy
MindMaze uses VR, brain imaging and gaming technologies to retrain the brain in stroke victims
Chronic Conditions
mySugr offers its gamified solutions for diabetes management in a fun way for both adults and
children (mysugr junior app)
Psychiatry
Headspace has created a reward system with gamification features that help meditation
become a habit, giving users exactly what they're searching for: calmness of mind
Paediatrics
Didget blood glucose metre from Bayer links to a Nintendo DS game platform. It assists children
(4-14 yrs) in managing their diabetes by rewarding them for regular blood glucose tests
Miscellaneous
Gamification is also used in Epilepsy treatment for younger people
It aids staff training through apps that provide storylines, badges & leaderboards
Sources: Gamify, Medical Futurist, Gamification of Medication Adherence in Epilepsy
Many games are rising up the healthcare ladder
and one even cleared the boss battle
FDA recognition is the highest accreditation in medical field and
recently EndeavorRX received it
EndeavorRX by Akili Interactive
First and only video game approved by FDA
Treats children aged 8 to 12 with ADHD
Snow World
A VR game for burn patients
It distracts patients and provides them
with a means of pain management
Ricky & Marlon
Game is for children with diabetes
Players have to manage their insulin levels while
keeping the glucose levels within an acceptable range
Re-Mission by Hope Labs
First video game scientifically proven
to improve health outcomes for young
people with cancer
Sources: VideoGames, EndeavorRx, SuccessRate
What’s a game without hurdles?!
Lack of credibility in both
patients and doctors. Even
after acceptance,
abandonment rate is high
High Cost of R&D and
marketing the games
Each user reacts differently to
the same application making
personalization vital and
commoditization difficult
Gamification works best for
short term goals but it is
difficult to achieve long term
objectives
Practitioners maybe
technologically challenged
and find it difficult to accept
and use such apps
Sources: MPO
In Gamification School, DTs are the Nerds!
Digital Therapeutics is often confused with games but they require a thorough
clinical trial before they are approved. Let’s look at a detailed comparison
between DTs and games 👇 1
DIGITAL THERAPEUTICS GAMIFICATION
DTx is about the software products
Gamification is about adding game
used in the treatment of medical
mechanics into non-game
conditions. They are studied using
Meaning environments using extrinsic and
randomized clinical trial
intrinsic rewards to motivate users
methodology and reviewed, cleared
to change their behaviors
or certified by regulatory bodies
It may be helpful (together with other
DTx can be used as a standalone tools) for preventive medicine by
therapy or in conjunction with Application encouraging things like healthy
more conventional treatments sleeping habits, weight
management, and health literacy
Key
Players
Sources: Pharmaphorum
Leading Brands Gamifying Healthcare Industry
Sources: MajorCompanies, MajorCompanies2
