What Addicting Platforms Like Netflix Can Teach Us About Gamification In Digital Health

Have you ever promised yourself you were just going to watch two episodes of a show on Netflix?

How did that work out?

For some of you, maybe it went just fine. But I’m guessing many of you dragged yourselves to bed at 2 AM because you had to finish the season.

Staying up late to binge-watch your favorite shows is common nowadays.

It’s addicting. The shows and the format are designed to keep you watching and engaged.

There are all kinds of social commentaries out there about why this is bad for us, and some of them make great points.

But I’m more interested in how services like Netflix, and even the games we play on our phones, are able to keep people so enthralled.

There’s potential to use some of those same techniques in the digital health field.

Digital health platforms are extremely useful services for patients, but they have to incentivize people to use them — and continue using them for a long period of time.

Here’s how:

Use The Power Of Prediction

Part of the reason you get hooked on one Netflix show after another is because the company knows what you want to see.

Or rather, it predicts what you want to see with increasing accuracy. Every show you watch (or don’t watch) helps them find the next one. That’s a concept digital health platforms can incorporate.

Digital health tools can use machine learning to predict which individuals may forget to take their medication.

This can be harnessed to anticipate all kinds of problems for patients, from missing appointments to forgetting therapy.

If we can find those at-risk patients, we can work proactively to prevent them from reaching the tipping point that leads a dangerous situation.

Give People Fun, Interactive Tools

Gamification is a powerful way to motivate people.

People like using their Fitbits or Apple Watches for exercise. They love when the activity circles are complete on the watch, or when they hit 10,000 steps in a day. And it’s something they would probably never think about without prompting from the tools.

Obviously, we need to make sure patients are getting some serious information as well.

There’s a fine line between making things fun and interactive for patients, and letting it devolve into a childish game that isn’t engaging for adults.

Imagine a diabetes patient.

Say he has a tool that creates a complex, engaging game to help manage his diabetes. Part of the game revolves around points, badges, and reminders about taking medication.

But occasionally, there might be a notification that pops up and tells him, “Over the past month, you’ve reduced your risk of losing your eyesight by 20%.”

This gaming feature keys him into the serious long-term benefits of properly managing his condition.

Develop Consumer-Driven Tools

Remember the best teachers you had in school?

They didn’t stand at the podium and lecture. They related the material to you in ways you could understand. They made it relevant to your life.

Patients are consumers, regardless of what anyone says. We need to design digital health platforms with their input and needs in mind.

We’re not going to reach 100% of people with digital health tools — just like there isn’t a single show on Netflix that everyone watches. But we do need to make sure these tools work for a broad spectrum of people and are relatable to the people who need them.

That means tools need to be consumer-driven.

Too often, they aren’t designed by the people or professionals who actually use them. Developers don’t necessarily understand what it’s like to control diabetes or blood pressure on a daily basis. There’s room for improvement here.

Relate It Back To Patients

Someone recently told me about a company they were involved with about 15 years ago.

The company was trying to get people to engage with chronic diseases and improve their health, much like what we’re talking about now.

They found they didn’t have much success engaging users unless one of two things happened:

1. The patient had a life-changing event, like a heart attack or a stroke. Something that woke them up to the importance of their condition.

2. Someone in the patient’s family had one of those life-changing events.

Those were the only two ways the company found success, because the events caused the patient to truly relate to their condition.

Right now, we’re not doing the best job of relating to people and helping them understand the importance of their conditions. But digital health platforms can help. We can create engaging, relatable platforms that really improve patients’ lives — and make them addicted to health.