“We have good evidence that games can be used to improve health," according to Paul Tarini, a senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). With this in mind, the foundation is providing seed money for the new Center for Digital Games Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
The multidisciplinary center will research such gaming environments and elements as human-computer interaction, behavioral health, augmented reality, social networks, data mining and interactive storytelling, according to a story posted on the RWJF website. It also has taken over operation of a database cataloguing hundres of health-related games and other resources.
“Many of our affiliated faculty members investigate players’ cognitive and emotional responses to digital media and games, and how these responses can be used to advance player knowledge, skills, attitudes and behavior as a way to move design and implementation forward,” the center's director, Debra Lieberman, Ph.D., said in the RWJF story.
About 30 UCSB faculty members are involved in the new center.
Neil Versel joined TriMed in 2015 as the digital editor of Clinical Innovation + Technology, after 11 years as a freelancer specializing in health IT, healthcare quality, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.