One of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s focuses is in deepening the understanding of the science behind human behavior. According to BJ Fogg, Director of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, behavior change happens when “Someone is triggered to do something that they want to do and that they are able to do.”
Vancouver-based Ayogo is a software company that supplies web-based and mobile applications for health that utilize game mechanics and social networking to influence patient behavior. Established in 2011 by long-time veterans in the gaming industry, founders Paul Prescod and Michael Fergusson, Ayogo has two products: GoodLife and Empower.
GoodLife is a customizable development platform incorporating proven gamification elements, including incentives and social features, that motivate users to make healthier decisions. Empower (and the version for children, Empower Kids) is a customizable application built on GoodLife for patients with chronic conditions. It is employed by health plans and health care providers to help patients engage with their treatment plan and develop new healthy habits specific to their condition.
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
Ayogo’s Empower Kids game engine drives the mechanics of its games like, Monster Manor and I (heart) Jellyfish.
Recently, the Oxford Academic Health Science Network began a pilot of Monster Manor to help young children with type 1 diabetes better track their glucose level, a crucial part of self-management. The game has been released in the UK and Ireland to 100 children. The pilot will allow Oxford AHSN to evaluate how Monster Manor helps improve patient engagement and adherence. If successful, the AHSN hopes to scale and open the opportunity to more children, with the hope to ingrain sustainable health habits.
Featured at the 2011 Body Computing Conference in Southern California much of I (heart) Jellyfish’s performance propelled elements of game mechanics in Monster Manor. “Our goal was to create a game economy and social context that would improve engagement for kids and let us provide nudges to their behavior,” Fergusson says. “Short –term interest is best driven with game mechanics and engagement over time is best done through social mechanics.”
The GoodLife gaming platform, upon which Empower is based, is unique in its rewards design. It connects the individual’s achievements to “a community mosaic” where progress become amplified by the meaningful relationships you have. The company typically provides ongoing hosting, management, and maintenance for applications on their cloud-based infrastructure. Significant resources have been spent on security and privacy considerations, as well as on producing reports of outcomes.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
In another recent collaboration, Ayogo Health built B.C.‘s MobileKids: Monster Manor, a game to help kids get up and moving. The game works with Tractivity, a biometrics sensor, to measure activity levels. All activity counts, and acts as currency to get to new levels and receive rewards in the game.
Overweight youth have been recruited for a 10-week trial run for B.C. Children’s Hospital’s healthy weights program. The MobileKids: Monster Manor project is part of a $3 million UBC initiative to get academics connected with communities to solve problems.
Currently, Ayogo is applying their technology and design approach to a variety of projects. Yet the team thinks about their applications as evolving programs, where lessons from each employment, coupled with the expanding body of science behind behavior change, guide the evolution of their platform and the growth of their business into the future.
