The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has announced an Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) $200,000 Games to Generate Data Challenge – a competition among technology developers to create game applications that generate useful health care quality data to improve health and health care.
The Games Challenge is the second in a series of innovation competitions sponsored by the Foundation through its Aligning Forces initiative. The first “app challenge” focused on creating applications to improve patient access to health care quality information. In this new Game Challenge, competing developers will build upon data from RWJF’s Aligning Forces initiative, County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program, and other databases to create game applications that engage patients and health providers in generating new quality data.
Gamification has been an increasingly hot topic in the health space. The features of computer and video games—advanced graphics, stunning realism, immersive interactivity, structured challenges—offer unique solutions to a variety of health and health care issues. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has historically supported research into the potential of games to improve health and health care. Early research consistently indicates that well-designed and well-implemented games can motivate and support prevention, lifestyle behavior change, self-care, clinical care, adherence to treatment plans, and self-management of chronic conditions. The Game Challenge, therefore, requires participating developers to provide a means for the data generated to be directed toward health care improvement. In playing the developed game applications, participants will be competing or collaborating to improve personal health while simultaneously contributing to the overarching goal of maximizing their community’s health.