Seeker Spotlight: Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and the Collaborative Chronic Care Network (C3N), recently posted a Challenge called “Games for Health: Inspiring Adolescents to take Control of their Health” which is seeking ideas for the design of a video game that would inspire and empower kids with chronic diseases to become more engaged in managing their own illnesses. We asked George Dellal, Project Director for C3N to tell us a bit more about this interesting Challenge.
Hi George – thanks for talking with us today. Can you tell us a bit about the key healthcare issues you are trying to address with this Challenge?
Certainly. Americans currently receive only about 50 percent of recommended care and typically perform only about half of the “self-management” procedures and behaviors necessary to keep them healthy. Traditional approaches to addressing these issues aren’t working quickly enough, that’s why we’re creating the C3N (www.c3nproject.org) - a new system of care to enable patients, clinicians and researchers to collaborate to solve important problems, and use their collective creativity and expertise to act in ways that improve health.
Your Challenge focuses on creating a video game with a social media aspect that will be targeted at adolescent sufferers of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Clearly the solution will need to be something that kids – who are notoriously discriminating in their video game choices – will be motivated to play. What critical issues must the solution address?
We’re looking for the game to do (at least) two main things. Firstly, we need to change patient behavior in the real world – improve adherence to meds and increase patient empowerment and activation. We also want the game to span both patient and clinician community – a bridge to improve clinician / patient interaction.
Do you think the solution to this Challenge could be adapted to adults or to sufferers of other diseases?
Most certainly. IBD is our prototype condition, but much of what we’re designing is applicable to many other chronic diseases. We’re excited about spreading what we learn.
What is your plan to take this game from concept to actual development?
We’re talking with a number of potential funders at the moment and we’ve connected with health technology start-ups through organizations including RockHealth and Cincy Tech.
This Challenge is part of a larger effort to improve collaboration in the treatment of specific chronic diseases. Can you tell us a bit more about that larger effort?
We’re creating a new system of care delivery based on patients and providers collaborating together. We’re currently testing and prototyping a number of initiatives from mentoring programs to Facebook apps. Please check our website for further information. www.c3nproject.org
Finally, can you tell us why you decided to engage the InnoCentive Solver community in tackling this problem?
Our work is all about harnessing the collective intelligence of patients and clinicians, so when we heard about InnoCentive it seemed like a perfect match – especially given InnoCentive’s successes with blue chip clients spanning both the public and private sector.
Thanks and good luck with your Challenge.
My pleasure.
Tags: Chrohn's Disease, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Collaborative Chronic Care Network, video game Challenge
