Nintendo could one day link patients, health care
SEATTLE – A visit to your doctor could soon be as easy as picking up your cell phone or turning on your Nintendo GameCube.
A doctor at the University of Washington is working with game developers to create an interface that reaches young people with diabetes where they are: on the phone or playing video games.
Dr. Harold Goldberg, 56, an admitted gadget geek and parent of two young adults, said the GameCube interface is a logical next step from his work with adult diabetes patients through their desktop computers.
The idea may not be popular with insurance companies unwilling to spend extra money on chronic health care. But helping people manage chronic health conditions themselves is the next big thing in the medical world, according to Goldberg and his supporters at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Only a fraction of Americans with Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, which often go together, have all three under control.
“If you fast forward 10 to 15 years, when these patients start getting their heart attacks and strokes … you’re talking about morbidity and mortality of a third of the U.S. population,” Goldberg said.
But there’s a positive statistic that is also associated with this group. By the time, their diabetes gets critical, their access to the Internet will also reach saturation.
Goldberg and three graduate students are working with six industry partners, including Nintendo and game designer Realtime Associates of El Segundo, Calif., to create a medical interface.
Lance Barr, product design director at Nintendo, in Redmond, Wash., said the company has for many years made some little-known forays into the field. Nintendo created a hand-free controller a few years ago that allows people with disabilities to play video games. They also put together a “fun center” that moves a GameCube and a DVD player around hospitals on a rolling cart for patient entertainment.
“We all live in the same community here. We like to give back to the community,” Barr said. He said he has a personal interest in health care because his wife is a mobile pharmacist and they have a son who has leukemia. “In the end, what we’re trying to do here is let technology improve people’s lives.”