Hopelab: video game takes on cancer

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To kick off this week's discussion on the use of video games in nontraditional gaming markets, meet HopeLab. Recently named as one of Fast Company Magazine's top 10 social enterprises, Hopelab is a nonprofit that uses "innovative approaches to improve the health and quality of life of young people living with chronic illnesses." Co-founded by Pam Omidyar, they concentration on five main diseases: Cancer, Obesity, Sickle cell disease, Autism, and Major depressive disorder.

To help young people fight cancer, they created a video game called Re-mission. The star of the game is Roxxi, a nanobot, who travels inside the human body to challenge cancer head on. Players guide Roxxi through a series of battles to seek out and destroy malignant cells. In addition to the game itself, there is an on-line community for young people to share information and provide support for one another as they fight their common enemy: cancer. The game is available in English, French, and Spanish.

To combat obesity, HopeLab recently created the Ruckus Nation idea competition. They created the competition to collect product ideas from people on how to get kids moving and keep them moving. The participation results were impressive: "More than 400 entries were submitted by teams representing 37 countries and 41 U.S. states. Contestants ranged in age from 6 – 82 years old." Visit http://www.ruckusnation.com/ to view the winning ideas. Hopelab is currently in the process of taking the winning ideas and bringing them to life.

Using video games in the healthcare arena sounds cool but does it work? A study released in the medical journal Pediatrics provides empirical support that, "The video-game intervention significantly improved treatment adherence and indicators of cancer-related self-efficacy and knowledge in adolescents and young adults who were undergoing cancer therapy. The findings support current efforts to develop effective video-game interventions for education and training in health care."

I look forward to seeing further integration of gaming into health care. I invite your comments and ideas below.