Games for Health Europe – Playing for your well-being
Serious gaming is a trend that we at Novility are tackling head-first with our training initiatives. It relies on the idea of using gaming principles applied to more serious goals such as proper training of personnel, in a way that keeps the trainees more engaged and focused on the subject matter, while achieving higher standards and competencies.
This trend has found its way into many domains and industries, with health being one of the fastest growing focus points of the serious gaming community. Proof of this is the Games for Health Project, an initiative supporting community, knowledge and business development efforts to use cutting-edge games and game technologies to improve health and health care. The 10 year old project celebrated this year the organization of its 9th annual Games for Health Conference in Boston (USA), and is quickly opening other chapters worldwide to encourage the spreading of their ideals.
As part of our ongoing effort of improving the wellbeing of housekeepers through our training system based on motion monitoring, our experts have attended this year’s edition of the Games for Health Europe conference in Amsterdam, to get acquainted with the latest trends and best practices being implemented by the health community.
Walking around the conference you will find a multitude of displays showcasing ideas for rehabilitation games, interactive tools for surgeons and improvements in patient care. These pioneers are the forefront of the medical gaming industry offering more than a simple Kinect game to help reduce childhood obesity, they’re offering better solutions for the medical industry. While visiting the displays and talks, we were pleasantly surprised by the free-flowing discussions that occurred between the presenters and industry professionals already successful in the medical gaming field. Lecturers and speakers alike were genuinely commented in assisting each other with ideas advice and directions to take their products.
While at the conference we had particular interest in motion capture technologies and innovations being made in this field. One example is physical therapist attempting to set up a home recovery system to reduce inpatient time. All of these in one central point of core, Health gaming is no longer just video gaming it is the future in patient care and should be viewed as a prescriptive drug not as a video game.
