Articles-Thought Leadership Is Healthcare Ready for Gamification? | Page 2

What is Gamification? Gamification in Healthcare
Gamification versus Gaming When asked if the healthcare industry could harness these
concepts, Sorrentino gave an enthusiastic “yes!”
Gamification can create self-service and automated
processes to improve learning, workforce development,
and even employee retention.
Sorrentino is careful to explain that gamification is not the
same as gaming. “As a company, we realize that the word
gamification is polarizing to many individuals,” Sorrentino
explains. Games like Call of Duty or Angry Birds have a
specific set of rules, typically they include a narrative that is
outside of our day-to-day experience, and they have a
beginning and end. Games are used to distract us and to
allow us to become immersed in an environment separate
from our own. In contrast, gamification provides clarity
and direction to activities that we’re already performing.
Games and gamification both use game mechanics and
dynamics. Game mechanics (i.e., points, levels, challenges,
leaderboards, virtual goods, etc.) are the rules and
rewards that make up a game and create a compelling,
engaging user experience. Game dynamics (i.e., rewards,
status, achievement, self-expression, competition, altruism,
etc.) are the compelling desires and motivations of the
experience. Games use these concepts to complete the
objective of the game, whereas gamification applies these
concepts to real-world applications and activities.
Gamification in Everyday Use
Gamification is more prevalent than most people realize.
Sorrentino explains, “We’ve seen it in things like the Boy
Scouts and Girl Scouts, doing activities that are important
to learning new skills and receiving badges that everyone
can see to denote our status within a group or
community.” Game mechanics are used in loyalty rewards
programs, frequent flyer programs, fitness devices, and
popular apps like Nike Run Club, Starbucks, and Waze.
To understand how gamification is applied to those
examples, Sorrentino explains, “Think about wearing a
Fitbit—most people are already walking, already sleeping,
and exercising throughout the day, and this device tracks
all of those things.” What gamification does is gamify the
activities that are already occurring and provide more
clarity surrounding those activities, all while creating an
engaging user experience. “Gamification makes visible the
idea of ‘what’s in it for me?’ What do I get out of this
experience? What do I learn? How do I help people by
performing this activity? Gamification taps into what
intrinsically motivates us as people. Am I becoming a
master at something? Am I bettering my community or
having more social interactions? Can I see the progress
going from point A to point B?”
“When people are more informed about what’s
happening in their environment and they know how to
progress, learn, or leave an impact, they’re more
committed to their career, and more satisfied with their
job performance and the quality of their life. With
gamification, a healthcare professional doesn’t have to wait
to know how they’re performing or what is next. They’re
able to harness that themselves and impact their own
journey,” Sorrentino explains.
Positive Impacts of Gamification
Motivate Performance
Gaming techniques can be employed to motivate and
improve performance by engaging employees in their
normal activities differently. “Gamification taps into what
intrinsically motivates people and accesses different
concepts that drive us in everyday life,” Sorrentino says.
Bunchball’s programming can help employees answer the
questions: Am I mastering something? Can I track my
progress? Am I bettering my community? What do I get
out of this experience and what do I learn?
Gamification Defined
At its core, gamification applies game mechanics to
non-game activities to prompt specific behaviors. In a
business context, gamification is the process of
integrating game mechanics and dynamics into a
website, business service, online community, content
portal, marketing campaign or even internal business
processes, in order to drive participation and
engagement by target audiences.
The overall goal of gamification is to more deeply
engage with consumers, employees, partners, and
other audiences, and inspire them to participate,
collaborate, share, and interact in some activity or
community. A particularly compelling, dynamic, and
sustained gamification experience can be used to
accomplish a variety of mission-critical business goals.
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Bunchball Gamification 101 White Paper