Gamification in Healthcare: Driving ROI Through High Engagement

Posted in Healthcare

Patient adherence and engagement are two of the most pressing challenges of healthcare today. But what if managing health was enjoyable and motivating? Can we add an element of fun to the equation? Yes! Gamification in healthcare makes self-care interactive, personalized, and, ultimately, more effective. According to Straits Research, The global healthcare gamification market size is projected to reach USD 8.6 billion by 2031, at a CAGR of 10.98% during the forecast period (2023-2031). These numbers demonstrate the effectiveness of gamification in improving patient outcomes, particularly in areas like medication adherence and chronic disease management.

What is Gamification in Healthcare?

The gamification method applies interactive tools to non-gaming environments such as learning systems, websites, and businesses. The main aim is to increase the engagement and participation of users. 

Healthcare gamification is the application of gaming techniques, principles, and mechanisms to healthcare environments to improve clinical outcomes. This process is utilized in health and wellness applications dealing with disease prevention, self-management, medication adherence, and telehealth programs. The core of gamification in healthcare is very patient-centric, as it aims to improve patient engagement by making their experience more personalized.

Patients can take part in different challenges and earn multiple badges as rewards. In some healthcare apps, they can compete with themselves by challenging personal goals, while in others, they can also compete against other patients. Patients are more motivated and involved in their healthcare activities by competing in different challenges and achieving goals.

Gamification in Healthcare: Use Cases

Most of the best healthcare mobile app development companies aim to incorporate gamification design in their well-being and digital help monitoring apps. Fitbit, Apple, and Android watches are some of the wearable healthcare devices that use gamification efficiently for wellness and fitness purposes.

In most health care and well-being applications, gamification can be seen used as:

•  Progression reports through different bars and charts to measure success. They invoke the progress-related psychological tendencies among the users.
•  Sharing of progress and achievements with friends and other users. This creates a sense of competition among the users and compels them to be more aware of their health-related goals.
• Offering progress badges, medals, stars, or any other virtual gifts at the completion of a goal. These gaming features fill the users with a sense of achievement.

Some of the more developed gamified healthcare apps also include specific exercises for people with movement impairments, older people, or people suffering from back pain. Gamification in healthcare benefits users and healthcare providers alike. While users enjoy their more personalized healthcare experience, health providers increase user satisfaction with their apps or brands in general by increasing engagement. 

That draws more users and increases customer retention, so it is a win-win situation for both parties. While building new health habits might feel like a difficult task, it can be made easier through the right incentives and by applying the philosophy of instant action and gratification. And that is exactly what gamification in healthcare provides.

The increasing demand and adoption of technology worldwide have caused the gamification medicine market to grow exponentially in recent years.  The global healthcare gamification market was valued at USD 3.31 billion in 2022. It is projected to reach USD 8.6 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 10.98% during the forecast period (2023-2031).

The rising digitalization of the world and more inclination toward technological advancements have been the major driving factors for the growth of the market. The increasing availability of smartphones enables easy access to healthcare and well-being apps, which helps the overall market growth.

The healthcare gamification market of the Asia Pacific region is projected to have the largest share during a forecasted time period. This is because of the large population in the region and the absence of good healthcare facilities.

All in all, the increased adaptability of technology in the healthcare sector has been driving the growth of gamification in the healthcare market, too. And in the coming years, this market is only expected to grow more as more people are inclined toward using healthcare technology.

Global Healthcare Gamification Market Projection (2022-2031)

Examples of Gamification in Healthcare 

If you measure your daily step count or document the number of calories you take a day, you are already using gamification for the betterment of health.  Many medical software development companies provide users with different sorts of gamified healthcare apps to improve their healthcare issues. These gamified apps motivate users for their healthcare goals rather than act as a forceful stream. 

There are some good examples of such apps that provide motivation, rewards, and increased commitment to their users. Some of the most prominent ones are discussed here.

1. Self-management Medication and Chronic Condition Apps 

Mango Health is one such application that encourages patients to take their medication on time and informs patients about the different side effects of the drugs. Another app, Manage My Pain, enables patients to track and document pain location and suggests ways to combat it.

2. Fitness and Nutrition Apps 

The health app provided by Apple is the most used fitness application. It allows users to track their sleep, heart rate, hydration, and calorie count. While MyFitnessPal is a nutritional app that helps users record their daily calorie intake and better manage their weight. Are you intrigued to learn how to create an Apple Watch app? Find details here.

3. Emotional health Apps 

Loóna helps users relax after a long, stressful day by attempting to create the right environment for a good sleep. Happify app has science-based activities for its users that improve their emotional well-being.

4. Healthcare Apps for Kids

My PlayHome Hospital app encourages children to be more willing to make hospital visits. MyTeeth application helps kids ages 1 to 9 brush their teeth better with proper technique and time limit.

Gamification in Healthcare Training

Gamification in the medicine sector helps with training healthcare staff.  Many healthcare compliance consulting companies are assisting their staff to train better by integrating healthcare applications with gaming features.

Information and skills are acquired better when the learner feels emotionally connected with the learning. Gamification of healthcare does that by providing different storylines, characters, achievement badges, and leaderboards. 

Moreover, it lets users learn from their mistakes in a virtual world rather than the real one. For instance, a surgeon could practice performing surgeries in-game without having the fear of causing the accidental deaths of real people. Most healthcare training involves memorizing different symptoms, diseases, and treatments, which can get boring. This knowledge is made simple and easy to retain through gamified learning courses.

Healthcare learners can track their progress and have timely feedback. By completing different levels, learners get a sense of accomplishment and the impression that they are moving forward with their learning process.

4 Benefits of Gamification in Healthcare

Many healthcare compliance companies provide gamified health apps with user-friendly UI designs in healthcare with HL7 and FHIR interoperability, making them more useful for patients and physicians. Some of the more prominent advantages of gamification in healthcare are discussed below.

1. More patient data

A large amount of relevant patient data is collected through gamified health apps. Patients are encouraged to give personalized feedback, which helps find new trends to develop better products. However, to secure this data, healthcare companies use HIPAA compliance for software development and go through HIPAA compliance audit services to ensure safety.

2. Better education programs 

According to a study, physicians who used gamified online tools for learning showed better results than their peers who used traditional learning tools. For healthcare companies, gamification has brought about more patient outcomes and trust, as well as increased employee productivity while reducing the cost of training programs.

3. Improved physical therapy 

The risk of cardiovascular diseases is reduced significantly through exercise, especially in wheelchair users. Healthcare gamification apps are used in physical therapy with the addition of therapeutic tools to build a better therapeutic setting for the patients. These games improve health and result in more patient satisfaction by providing them with the right gaming tools for therapy.

4. Improved health of employees 

Employees of a healthcare company can be made more efficient and healthier by implementing a company wellness program. Through different healthcare apps and HL7 messages sharing, healthcare companies can better understand their employees’ health.  These gamified health apps enable employees to better track their health goals and also share them with their peers. 

Gamification Features in Healthcare Apps

Many healthcare applications enable patients to manage their health issues better and also help them to be more autonomous through self-assessments and remote care solutions. Some of these healthcare companies not only provide the best examples of excellent customer service in healthcare but also easily accessible health solutions.

But with rising competition, health companies need to deliver more features to enhance user engagement and attention, and that’s where gamification helps by adding more fun to the apps.

These gamified healthcare apps add more fun to the apps and make them more user-centric, increase user attention, and modify their behavior to improve health outcomes. That’s why different telemedicine software development companies and health app development companies try to include the following gaming features in their apps. 

Here are some of the must-have features:

Reward badges

Different reward badges and awards are featured in healthcare applications to give users a sense of achievement and motivate them to keep up with their health goals. These badges also enable the users to set milestones for themselves and challenge their selves more regarding health-oriented goals.

Reward Points

Users receive specific in-game points after completing a particular task or level. These reward points help with performance’s perceived value and give visual proof of progression, which can be exchanged for other in-game benefits.

Leaderboards

Leaderboards help create a sense of competitiveness among users. They can share their progress with friends and other users and see their progress on leaderboards.

Gamification in the Pharmaceutical Sector

Today, many marketers seek to employ gaming tools to boost consumer engagement, and pharmaceutical companies are no exception. They use gaming mechanisms to increase marketing efforts by focusing on making patients active, educated, and engaged during their care. All these efforts ultimately incite a positive business impact and improved patient outcomes.

Many pharmaceutical companies use gaming tools to help their employees train better. “Called Detective” is one such game provided by The Game Agency’s Training Arcade. It helps pharmaceuticals train their representatives better, attract new clients, and increase information about new products.

Trivia and Match 3 are other examples of gamification in healthcare that focus more on training-related content and questions than traditional sports trivia or ancient history questions. Moreover, some Pharma companies use gamification to onboard new reps, brand managers, and district managers. Instead of providing them with the usual tasks, these reps can do the work through different gamification tasks. These gaming tools improve engagement and their ability to retain and recall. To take advantage of gamification in pharma more, pharma companies need to take more time to engage with patients and understand their needs first.

Also, they need to understand more about how to apply the perfect game mechanics that suit the patient’s needs. If companies are willing to slow down and invest in creating customized, patient-centered, gamified tools, then there are higher chances for innovative and successful behavioral changes.

Trends in Healthcare Gamification

The healthcare gamification market is projected to grow at commendable rates, owing to the increased use of smartphones and higher usage of healthcare applications. By transforming their business models from volume-based to value-based approaches, many companies have caused the growth of gamification in healthcare. 

Many healthcare gamified apps have been gaining popularity in recent years, some of which are discussed below:

Nutrition and Fitness Apps

Globally, the concern about obesity has increased, and now, more healthcare apps allow users to monitor their nutrition and weight. HealthMonth is a currently popular app that claims to assist in achieving significant improvement in health behavior once a month. It uses nutrition science with behavioral change and social gaming tools.

Emotional, Mental, and behavioral health Apps

Gamification of health apps helps not only keep a healthy body but also keep a healthy mind. Many emotional and cognitive areas can benefit from different gaming tools. For example, BellyBio, brainstormed by RelaxLine, is a prominent name in the healthcare gamification industry that works on bio-feedback to help users release anxiety through ocean sounds and deep breathing exercises.

Simulation Apps

Simulation health games are used to improve physicians’ and medical researchers’ technical knowledge of monitoring and medical procedures. Moreover, more immersive simulations improve patients’ health by making them visualize health-related behavioral consequences.

Telehealth

The increasing adoption of technology in health care has also raised the use of telehealth. The number of hospitals that use Epic software, along with other EHR device integrations, has increased considerably in recent years. 

Leveraging gaming principles is being applied in healthcare apps as a popular medium to encourage rural populations about health outcomes. With the recent outbreak of Covid-19, the use of healthcare apps is only increasing.

Process of Gamification in Healthcare

While making a gamified healthcare app, you must focus on the pain points it can address. For example, motivation loss while fasting, lack of concentration in meditation, or difficulties during rehabilitation. The patients’ needs are to be very carefully analyzed in order to make a product that fits those needs.

So, to make an engaging gamified healthcare app, you need to stick to these two significant points:

Rapid feedback 

Application users should be able to get instant feedback through different rewards, achievements, or recommendations from the doctor.

Progression

The application must have a strong analytic system so that the users can track their progress and compare their current results with the prior ones.

After this, you should be able to design the healthcare game app according to your needs. You can add different gaming mechanisms like reward badges, leaderboards, and some challenges to make the application more enticing and engaging for the users.

Gamification in Healthcare With Folio3 Digital Health

Create a healthcare application with gamification features to keep your patients engaged for longer. Folio3’s industry experts focus on delivering custom applications that are up to legal standards like HIPAA or GDPR and integrate HL7 and FHIR capabilities for advanced interoperability. 

Conclusion

To summarize, the rapid digitalization of the world is affecting every aspect of our lives, and the healthcare industry is no exception. Every medical software development company utilizes every available resource and technology to improve patient quality care.

Gamification is a resource that enables them to make patients more engaged and aware of their healthcare problems. So, the recent growth of healthcare gamification will only increase with the increased use of healthcare technology.

Frequently Asked Questions 

What are the best gamification health and fitness apps?

Some of the best health and fitness applications:

• Zombies, Run!
• Fitocracy
• Nike+ Run Club
• Couch to 5K
• JEFIT
• Strava
• Fitbit App

How is the gamification of healthcare emergence of the digital Practitioner?

Strict regulatory processes are necessary to safely apply gaming principles to patient care. Clinical guidelines to ensure that the gamification principles are appropriate for patients are also needed. All these factors call for a digital practitioner or a digital consultant to help guide the gamification process, select proper healthcare apps, and monitor the appropriate outcome of these apps.

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