Video game innovation in healthcare – an interview with Design Week

Design Week recently interviewed our Medical Illustrator and Creative Director, Dr Ciléin Kearns, along with Dr Carla Brown from Game Doctor, and Zhuying Li, about video game innovation in healthcare and research. The article explores how video games are being used in clinical care and research, and the exciting direction for the future.

Illustration by Dr Ciléin Kearns, supporting pandemic research on COVID-19 during the first nationwide Level 4 Lockdown in New Zealand.

In recent work, the MRINZ engaged Kiwis with COVID-19 research during a Level 4 lockdown by presenting a dynamic tailored comic upon completion of a comic-illustrated survey; this had the social draw of showing how a respondent’s answers compared to the live data set from the rest of the country. In six days we had almost 19,000 responses, overwhelming our expectations (and servers!). This evidenced how creating a better experience for respondents facilitated pandemic research.

Kiwi characters from an illustrated interactive survey used for COVID-19 research during the first nationwide Level 4 lockdown in New Zealand. Illustrations by Dr Ciléin Kearns.

Our wonderful multidisciplinary team will soon begin a study looking at whether interactive comic tutorials can help patients with asthma to learn how to self-manage their care with a new evidence-based treatment algorithm. 

You can read the full article here: https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/24-30-august-2020/video-games-medicine/