The latest Knowledge@Wharton has an article From Fitbit to Fitocracy: The Rise of Health Care Gamification about challenges that early healthcare gamification initiatives are encountering. Chief among them is getting patients involved, and keeping them motivated to stay involved.
I'm also reading Drive, by Daniel Pink. Which is all about how motivation works. One of my key takeways so far (I'm 41% through it) is that what motivates us in the short term is quite different from what motivates us in the short term. Gamification is mostly based on what Pink would call Motivation 2.0 approaches -- rewarding people with money or points for certain behaviors. It's extrinsic motivation. According to Pink, that might be brilliant to motivate people to make short term health changes. However, it's likely to be unsustainable to drive long term health changes. The kicker, of course, is that for healthcare initiatives to truly impact people's health outcomes and the cost structure of the system, it can't just focus on short term change. It has to motivate enduring, long-term change.
I'm just at the beginning of where Pink outlines the ways to inspire intrinsic motivation. I'm curious to see if any of those techniques can be built into a product or a service that engages people differently in their health over the long-term.