Dealing With Death: The Gamification of Social Prescription in the Health Industry

Abstract

<p>Social prescribing is a way to support patients with holistic, non-clinical services aimed to improve their overall health and well-being. It is a relatively new concept, adopted in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands, where doctors prescribe or refer patients to non-clinical tools or activities. United Kingdom’s National Health Service is implementing a pilot project that seeks to facilitate meaningful conversations between palliative care patients and their loved ones in regards to their final wishes. The tool used to facilitate conversations was a physical card game. This study documents the design and application development involved in reconstructing the card game into digital format, from wireframing to final software compilation. This research may be applied to further the digitization of social prescribing tools or the digitization of other areas of health care. </p>