Games for Health dated

  • By Patrick Caldwell, GameSpot
  • Posted Aug 9, 2006 9:15 am PT

How can games and the health industry work together? Games for Health 2006 will bring together health professionals to find out how.

The University of Maryland School of Medicine is again hosting the Games for Health conference, a two-day gathering that health-care workers and researchers use to look at and discuss the latest health-related game technology.

Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the third-annual Games for Health is set for September 28 and 29 and is part of the Serious Games Initiative, which finds real-world applications to games in fields such as education, training, and health.

"Slowly but surely the last year has seen a growing appreciation for what modern-day video games can offer to health care," said Games for Health cofounder Ben Sawyer.

Some of Games for Health's 30 conferences include "State of Exergaming," a discussion of games that promote exercise; "Making Hospitals Fun," which explains how "hospitals can be much more fun than they are" using video games; and "Mass Casualty Care Panel," a discussion about how applying game simulations can prepare health-care workers for real-life epidemics and large-scale crises.

No keynote speakers have been announced yet. The next registration deadline is September 8 at a cost of $375.

17 Comments

  • kontaktin

    Posted Aug 10, 2006 8:45 am PT

    oh yeah

  • usyagi_2004

    Posted Aug 10, 2006 8:30 am PT

    Wii and DS will be big there!

  • faizali86

    Posted Aug 10, 2006 5:08 am PT

    state of exergaming - ddr, wii, guitar hero, and stuff like that i guess
    making hospitals fun - ?
    mass casualty care panel - kind of like how flight simulator is for flyers?

    but overall i think its a good idea

  • metdevthegamer

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 4:13 pm PT

    Grand idea.

  • LProjektST

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 11:57 am PT

    I'm sure Wii could play a big role in this for the future of RSI

  • gameloverx

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 11:39 am PT

    hmm trauma center is considered a hospital simulator yet this games for health thing will teach us gamers more about our favs

  • Bio_Spark

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 10:58 am PT

    Hasn't this already been done 5-10 years ago?

    http://cache.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=11800&ch=biztech

    Such awful games too. Then again, I suppose this is a somewhat different subject.

  • skitzocyko

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 10:44 am PT

    Let us not forget Youself Fitness!!

  • GMAN32X

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 10:43 am PT

    Games can definitely be beneficial to your health. The DDR series immediately jumps out in my mind. All of the Eye Toy games as well. I remember reading several stories in different monthly gaming mags about how surgeons were using games like Super Monkey Ball to improve their manual dexterity. Very cool indeed.

  • amkalfus

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 9:57 am PT

    That's pretty cool. People always say crap about games being unhealthy and dangerous to children's minds, yet these people are trying to promote it as being healthy and an engaging experience. I would love to read what comes out of this conference. I also commend these people for trying to go against the norm of politicians today in trying to promote games and not destroy them.

  • Platyphyllum

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 9:46 am PT

    So I guess Eye Toy: Kinetic and Trauma Center: Under the Knife will be featured there or something? Seeing how Eyetoy: Kinetic is a fitness game and Trauma Center is a hospital simultion.

  • luke7610

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 9:35 am PT

    IMO Wii will help with RSI. On some games at least.

  • gnbfd

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 9:32 am PT

    Sorry, but Third. Anyway awesome idea. Eye Toy Kinetic would be good for that.

  • sebFlyte GameSpot staff member

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 9:31 am PT

    Two words spring to mind here.

    Theme Hospital.

    Now *that* was a quality game.

  • gnbfd

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 9:30 am PT

    [This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

  • Theman3788

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 9:25 am PT

    nice. Thats actually a really good idea, learn things from places that are unexpected

  • shasam712

    Posted Aug 9, 2006 9:19 am PT

    Games for health.....right. I have never associated health with games and I am sure I never will. The Wii can do alot of cool stuff, but its no fitness machine. When it comes to the 360 and PS3 you're still sitting down pushing buttons while staring at a TV.

    As for stuff like education and training, I think we are already there. Stuff like simple logic and puzzle solving can be done very easily by alot of us thanks to these games. So I think we are all learning from out games anyway....I doubt we need this conference.

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