A team led by UBC Health is the recipient of the 2021 Award of Excellence and Innovation in the Integration of Technology (Higher Education) from the Canadian Network for Innovation in Education for the development of a health informatics game. The award acknowledges the innovative work around the effective integration of existing or new technology in the learning environment.

Developed by the Informatics Working Group, the game is delivered to groups of interprofessional students each year as part of the UBC Health Integrated Curriculum. It helps prepare health professional students to use information and communication technology (ICT) in a way that supports the care of individual patients. The game is designed to give students a foundation in the principles of safe, effective, person-centred care within the context of ICT use.

In the game, interprofessional teams of health professional students compete against each other to earn the most points by considering the most appropriate use of ICT for a particular patient within a specific context of care. Students collaboratively make decisions about what technology to use and how, taking into consideration its limitations or infrastructure and the patient’s digital literacy and access to ICT. The focus of the game is not on clinical care but on the effective use of ICT across the healthcare team. 

This gamification approach to interprofessional learning has proved to be an innovative way to engage teams of students around a content area that is becoming increasingly important with today’s healthcare environment, where technology is playing a prominent role in the provision of care across our province. 

Posted July 13, 2021