A Healthy Dose of Games For Health

Where were you on May 8-9?

Well, if you are interested in new ways to use cutting-edge games and game technologies to improve health care, and you weren’t in Baltimore attending the annual Games for Health conference, then you missed out on a great opportunity.

Over the span of three full days, more than 300 people participated in about 60 sessions, run by an international array of expert speakers, cutting across a wide range of activities in health and health care. Topics included exergaming, physical therapy, disease management, health behavior change, biofeedback, epidemiology, training, cognitive exercise, nutrition and health education.

We were there. We always try to attend Games for Health, or GFH, now in its fourth year. It’s a great way for us to meet with people who are either involved with or interested in becoming better acquainted with game technology. In fact, we met two of our newest clients – Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi and Medical College of Georgia School of Dentistry – at past GFH conferences.

And we think you should be there, too. This year, there were more people and organizations involved than ever before, including a number of big players in the health care industry. For instance, Humana organized a special Keynote Panel, which featured four of the nation’s leading health insurance providers discussing their emerging activities in the games for health field – a first in the conference’s history, according to organizer Serious Games Initiative, a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars effort that applies cutting-edge games and game technologies to a range of public and private policy, leadership and management issues.

Over the next couple of posts, we will provide some highlights and more detailed coverage of the 2008 GFH conference. This will serve as a nice recap for those of you who attended and provide a little insight for those of you who did not. Mainly, we hope that you will gain a greater understanding of the impact games and game technologies can have on health, health care and policy, and that you will see the value in attending next year’s conference.