Tuesday, June 19, 2012

ONC Looks to Grow the Power of Health Gaming

Miliard, Mike. "ONC Looks to Grow the Power of Health Gaming." Healthcare IT News, June 15, 2012

From the article: "At Games for Health 2012 on Thursday – amid talk of virtual worlds, avatars, Kinect sensors, biomechanics, social media crowdsourcing and exergaming – a policymaker from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT said that gaming is "on the radar of the federal government."… Games offer a whole lot more value beyond mere entertainment, Poetter pointed out. They can motivate people to overcome challenges; enable them to visualize change and progress; improve self-efficacy through knowledge and goal sharing and facilitate patient/provider communication and interaction.

And they can do even more than that. At Games for Health, one session explored how Xbox's Kinect could be be used not just burn calories with its virtual tennis, but be applied to gauging biomechanics and assisting with telesurgery and helping with catatonic schizophrenia." Read more 

See also
The Eighth Annual Games for Health Conference. Games for Health website, February 8, 2012.