Games for Health Holds Capitol Hill Event

What's this? Video games shown on Capitol Hill and it wasn't a congressional game-bash?

It's true... Our friend Ben Sawyer at Games For Health clued GamePolitics into his organization's event last week in Washington, D.C..

More than 350 congressional staffers and other guests feasted on the likes of Nintendo's Brain Age, Sony's Eye Toy Play, Konami's DDR Mario Mix and several less commercial titles (full list after the jump). Games for Health project team members also held more than a dozen briefings with the staffs of congressional committees or individual members of Congress, including leaders of both the majority and minority side of the house Medical Technology Caucas, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Jim Ramstad (R-MN). Also publicly supporting the event were Senators Michael Enzi (R-WY) and Tom Harkin (D-IA)

In categorizing the congressional response, Sawyer said, "In general we found staff very receptive to our work although many hadn't played many games and so when we'd show screenshots to things one of the first impacts was that things looked so interesting and advanced. Some had heard about DDR. We had to keep reminding ourselves not to use acronyms like that! ...but certainly... games were still something foreign. Despite all that we got some great questions. It's amazing how fast some staff get up to speed as you start talking with them. One staffer was immediately drawn to the idea of how games could help redefine interfaces to health IT systems - that's pretty advanced thinking."

Obesity and disease management were major concerns for congressional attendees, Sawyer told GP. Staffers were intrigued by the idea of creating systems that help or teach people to avoid or manage chronic conditions and injuries.

"This of course," Sawyer said, "is tied directly to lowering costs and adding personal responsibility to some extent and given the political spectrum on the Hill it seems like a consensus point to explore. Use games to educate cheaply, reach populations that are hard to reach, induce more personal responsibility, focus on management of health issues that tax the personnel and resources of the healthcare system."

More photos from the event can be seen here. A trailer video is available on YouTube.

Games Shown to Congress included:

FreeDive! from Breakaway Games, being tested as a pain distraction environment

Yourself! Fitness from Respondesign, a personal trainer product for Xbox/PS2/PC

Ben's Game - which visualizes cancer and was developed with support from the Make-A-Wish Foundation

Sony Kinetic - an EyeToy based workout program with trainers and games that was co-developed by Nike Motionworks.

New Dawn Manor from Pulluin Software, a game-based approach to assisted living staff training.

EyeToy Play which is among other EyeToy games being looked at by researchers for helping stroke victims, and amputees.

Konami's DDR with pads supplied by Red Octane that showed off everyone's favorite dancing exergames. We showed both the PS2 version and Nintendo's DDR Mario Mix

Immune Attack from the Federation of American Scientists which is a game developed at USC for teaching K-12 students about the immune system.

PowerGrid Fitness' Kilowatt device driving Need for Speed on the Xbox, showing how this controller provides an isometric based aerobic and strength conditioning workout.

DS BrainAge from Nintendo

Pulse!! a next-generation game-technology based 3D virtual world for nurse, medic, and doctor training being developed at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi by Breakaway Games.

Second Life from Linden Lab demonstrated their build-your-own MMP technology which is being used by a number of therapuetic and training projects in the health arena.