Since 2010, both sites have hosted challenges sponsored by organizations, corporations, and the government. Some have monetary prizes, some just offer recognition. The goal is to bring software programmers, designers, and health care experts  together for rapid application development. There are two types of developer projects: 1) challenges, which overseas team collaboration to build specific requested tech solutions, and 2) code-a-thons.  Code-a-thons are typically one day or weekend events that spur teams to rapidly create new applications and tools to improve health care.

Health 2.0 and Challenge Post make it easy to form teams with their community boards and resources. Check out the wide array of challenges posted on their sites. Compare goals, deadlines and prizes. Make new contacts, enjoy the thrill of creativity, and the pride of helping find real solutions to health care issues. Several have December 31, 2011 deadlines, so check out the fun and competition, and register today!

http://www.Health2Challenge.org
http://www.Challenge.gov

Multiple pedometers and sensors track steps, galvanic skin response, brain waves, and pulse and are easily synched with smartphone apps that forward reports to your doctor.  Sensors can be placed in carpets, slippers, kitchen drawers and refrigerators to track movement of elders living alone. Reports can be sent to specified caregivers. One sensor tracks sleep patterns when placed in an arm band and then placed under your smartphone in the morning to sync and download and email the report. Airstrip Tech links doctors with EMTs in ambulances to follow monitors as the patient travels to the hospital. Two 5 minute Rapid Fire product demo sessions reviewed over 25 new products.

Several websites help patients track their medical information. Patients determine what they want to share and with whom.  Some are open source; some are created by private companies. Patient groups like ePatient Dave and Patients Like Me encourage sharing collective medical information to foster a faster learning curve to how to best treat patients and diseases in the US and abroad.

I had the distinct honor of speaking on a panel about game play.
My expertise comes from creating and consulting on multiple smartphone apps related to food and nutrition. Gamification was a hot topic in multiple sessions, mentioned frequently as a terrific means to engage and educate patients. Interesting to me was the fact that some telemedicine products and apps already include game play. This is mostly in the form of Q&A or true/false questions. To celebrate Breast Cancer Month in October, a colleague, Nadine Fisher, MS RD LD, and I created the Apple app Breast Cancer Care. We included five true/false games and one food photo match game.

Many of the products I saw at Connected Health are first generation this year.  One company rep said there were only a handful of tech vendors exhibiting last year. This year there were five exhibitor rows lining a hotel ballroom.  This business is exploding. I have seen the future of medicine, and it is exciting and often fun. Games are a great hope to advance the health of the world for patients, caregivers, and professionals.

Here’s a link to a blog post about the panel on which I spoke. I was the only RD on the program.

http://mobihealthnews.com/13977/add-health-to-games-or-games-to-health

Ben Sawyer was instrumental in its foundation and development into the force that it is today.  It’s annual meeting draws hundreds of global participants each year in Boston.

So it was exciting news this year when Games for Health announced a  European partner. It’s first meeting will be held in Amsterdam on October 24 and 25.  The central theme is: How games and simulations can improve health(care) and make it affordable. The program is dynamic includes topics on five core tracks:

Cognitive and emotional health
Participatory health
Exergaming, active gaming and fitness
Rehabilitation games
Medical/Education and training

So if you are looking for an excuse to visit Amsterdam, the Games for Health Europe conference is a must do.  It will be exciting to watch this innovative group develop and deliver fresh ideas and research on health games for the European health community.

Register today!
www.GamesforHealthEurope.org

James Watt, PhD is a serious games researcher at the University of Connecticut. He explains that social interaction is relative to masked identity. Group communication is best when there is also social interaction. So how about creating an avatar-likeness with body movements that still provides anonymity? Microsoft Xbox recently released Avatar Kinect that scans participants and then creates a general look-alike avatar of themselves – including body movements.

Players might not mind sharing personal attributes with friends, but would players feel comfortable revealing their size, hair color, and mannerisms to strangers, too? This remains to be seen, as medical professionals brainstorm about health applications. Consider in-home avatar group therapy sessions, patient education classes, addiction support groups, or parent clubs. Now layer on a health gaming twist. How about a virtually engaging game of Nutrition Jeopardy? The possibilities are tremendous! What kind of avatar health games do you envision? This field is wide-open for development. Game on!

From the start, early thought-leaders recognized that progress in this emerging industry needed to rely on health professional collaboration based on sound, scientific research to prove efficacy. This is what researchers call, “the scientific method.” Developers, designers, funders, and players want to see supportive data. Multiple colleges and universities have stepped up to take the task, and many privately funded developers eagerly share their methods and results to further the cause. Unfortunately, researchers publishing their results has been a problem. Traditional scholarly journals do not target video games for health — until now.

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc, publishers of scores of well-respected peer-reviewed scientific journals have announced plans to publish Games for Health: Research, Development, and Clinical Applications this fall.  Games for Health will be a peer-reviewed journal and has a stellar editorial board line-up. The Liebert press release stated the journal would be published bi-monthly and would be “dedicated to the development, use, and applications of game technology for improving physical and mental health and well-being. The Journal breaks new ground as the first to address this emerging, widely-recognized, and increasingly adopted area of healthcare.”

The Games for Health journal and it’s accompanying online presence is a welcome home for the health video games community. For more information check out www.liebertpub.com

Back in 2010 we were introduced to the “Wii-killer,” aka the Kinect for Xbox 360.  Microsoft’s initial lineup of exergames revealed great health gaming potential. Others, such as Dr. Bill Crounse who writes for the Microsoft Health blog, speculated that the Kinect could be used in healthcare for even bigger purposes due to its set of special characteristics. This includes:

• Hands-free controls
• Advanced motion-sensing
• Voice recognition
• Facial recognition
• Data collection through a simple Internet connection

Innovative uses in medicine.

Innovators in the medical community have been able to take these special characteristics and far surpass initial expectations for the ways the Kinect can be used in healthcare. I doubt that Microsoft expected their new controller-free gaming device to have such an impact in such a variety of ways. Here are just some of the many examples:

• Diagnose disorders in children: The National Science Foundation has funded Minnesota’s Medical, Science and Engineering, and Education and Human Development Colleges to use the Kinect sensor to detect abnormal movements in children which may indicate health problems like autism, attention-deficit disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder.
• Save time in the operating room: Surgeons at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital are using Kinect sensors to access, rotate, zoom, and manipulate medical images during surgery without leaving the operating room.
• Increase effectiveness of patient-physician interactions – Jin Joo Lee of the Personal Robotics group at MIT Media Lab is using the Kinect to detect nonverbal cues. This can greatly enhance clinicians’ abilities to detect unnoticed patient needs via body language and facial expressions.
• Manipulate 3D CT images hands-free: Doctors at the Center for Biomolecular Imaging at Wake Forest University School of Medicine are using the Kinect to control 3D rendered CT scans to give surgeons the ability to manipulate visualizations in midair without using a mouse.
• Increase cardiac surgery rehabilitation adherence: The Esoma Exercise System, created by a staff member at Tufts University, uses the Kinect to help to make cardiac rehabilitation fun and engaging by transforming exercises into a game.

I’m sure there are many other ways the Xbox 360 Kinect is being used in medicine today, whether in testing or in practice. Feel free to share your knowledge with the group by leaving a comment.

One of the health game products I’ve been watching very closely is Zamzee. Not a whole lot has been written about this innovative new company yet, especially when one compares it to previous HopeLab products like Re-Mission. However, they have really geared up for an impressive product, and it will be very interesting to see how well it does in clinical testing and in the market.

What is Zamzee.

Zamzee is an online rewards program for teens based on their recorded physical activity. Users wear a three-axis accelerometer specially calibrated to record short bursts of movement and vigorous activity. Increased movement increases website status which can then be converted into spendable Zamz, a virtual currency used to purchase virtual and tangible rewards.

Zamzee was established in 2010 with an initial investment of $1M from the HopeLab Foundation. The creators of Zamzee hope to make it into a profitable business with the added benefit of getting teens more physically active.

Market potential.

Although Zamzee has some characteristics that make it completely unique, some of its features do remind me of other products, many of which haven’t done so well in the market.

• ME2 Universe – online 3D virtual world which is unlocked by physical activity recorded through a handheld – no longer available
• Zyked – a mobile app which aims to make sports and exercising more fun through gameplay and community features – never made it out of alpha testing
• Pokewalker – pedometer that records steps which are converted to currency for Pokemon Nintendo DS titles – resulted in gamer articles about how to cheat the system to get free currency
• Samurai Pedometer – pedometer and calorie counter in which the more you walk, the further your virtual samurai gets to conquering Japan – popular with adults not children
• Glucoboy – unlock virtual rewards for blood glucose monitoring – picked up by Bayer and marketed as Didget
• GeoPalz – a pedometer for the wrist or shoelace that rewards kids with real and virtual prizes for steps walked – new version launched this year
• WeMuv – a pedometer that rewards physical activity steps with website access and school fundraising opportunities – successful in Canada
• Horsepower Challenge – Humana’s online game that links kid’s real-world activity with a virtual race around the planet – successful in schools

Positions still available.

I have to say that one benefit Zamzee has over probably many of these others is the strong team they’re building. Back in February, Zamzee announced that they finally established a solid executive team including Jonathan Attwood as CEO and Lance Henderson as COO.

However, not all of the available positions have been filled. This is excellent news for all of you job hunters out there as it is very rare for health game positions to be available. Take a look at their careers page to see if you might be a good fit for one of these openings. Good luck out there!

Opening keynote.

This year, the chosen keynote is an interesting one for Games for Health. Ben Sawyer announced that the founding father of Positive Psychology, Dr. Martin Seligman, will be taking the stage. You can read Dr. Seligman’s full bio on the U Penn Positive Psychology Center page.

Dr. Seligman will help Games for Health attendees understand the opportunities that positive psychology presents for games. His opening talk “Positive Psychology>Positive Computing>Positive Videogames” is one of over 60 talks planned for the three day event will provide the basis for a conference long discussion about how video game developers and researchers can create “PERMA Power Ups” forged by a collaboration between the documented interventions of positive psychology and interactive entertainment.

A little something new.

I’m actually very excited about this keynote. Several years ago I did a little series on healthGAMERS called “What Makes a Great Health Game Great.” One of the many things required for a good game is the ability to help players reach that feeling of flow or losing oneself through enjoyment. Perhaps Dr. Seligman will be able to expand upon this.

Additional speakers and presentations are available on the full schedule block page for the conference. This is constantly being updated so if you don’t see something here for you just yet, keep checking back. There are over 60 talks planned this year.

Register now for a discount.

To register, visit the Games Beyond Entertainment Week registration page. Prices range from $199 to $999 depending on how early you sign up and how many events you choose to attend. Us the code BOST11 to receive 10% off registration!!

Similar to the DIVERSE Conference call for eHealth papers, this is a great opportunity for those of you with experience in games for health research to step up to the plate and get your knowledge in print.

What you need to know.

Below is a summary of the general needs:

• Book objectives: To introduce the development and application of game technologies for health-related serious games; to provide cutting edge research from academia and industry, informing readers about the current and future advances in the area.
• Target audience: Innovative professionals and researchers in healthcare.
• Recommended topics: Key trends of serious games for health; design and development; future trends of serious games for health.

How to submit.

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before April 15, 2011, a 1-2 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Visit the Serious Games for Healthcare: Applications and Implications for full details about the requirements. Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document):

Dr. Sylvester Arnab
Serious Games Institute
Coventry University
CV1 2TL, UK
Tel.: +44(0)24 7615 8205
E-mail: s.arnab[at]coventry.ac.uk