Why so serious?

So today I meet up with my serious game course group in order to finalize our concept document. This went well, mostly due to the work that had already been put into it and tomorrow we will present the topic and concept for this game.

So what is it? (I hear you say)

The topic of the serious game is heath care. The game more specific takes the problem with the waiting time in the emergency department waiting rooms, since the patients have to wait too long before they get any treatment at all.

This game is meant to increase the awareness of the problem to the public by letting the player take control over nurses, who job is to organize and prioritize the patients in the waiting room and choose who to send to the doctor and who can wait. This will make so that the players will feel the stress and the hopelessness that nurses go through with that system.
So why this topic?




I can only speak for myself when writing this. I had two personal reasons why I wanted this topic chosen and the game built.

1. My mother.

During the last spring before I graduated from high-school, my mother started to act strange. She did not have any energy to do anything and complained about pain in her stomach for weeks. She went to health centers, however they could not find anything wrong with her. Well that´s was before she received a call,that told her to maybe go to emergency department and seek treatment. That was the first time I saw her cry in my life.

She did go, after I and my dad convinced her. And there she sat in the waiting room…for 8 hours. And when she got in  there was another waiting spot for her… where she waited 4 more hours. 

After all the time she waited, in pain she finally got a doctor who told her: “You have a stomach disease. We will now treat you with medicine. If you would have arrived sooner we could have help more”.

Now… I see a problem here. I don´t say that my mother would have been better if she did in fact get her treatment earlier. However, I can´t possible rule out the possibility that she would have been. And there has been papers that supports my theory that the patients gets worse in the waiting room, due to physical and mental stress. And I feel hopeless, knowing that I can´t do anything about it, except for increasing awareness that the problem exits and needs to be solved.

And the second reason…
2. Me.

The stomach sickness, can leave a legacy from parent to child. There is a risk that I will within 10-20 years experience the same thing my mother went thru. And I am selfish, because I don´t want to do that. That is why I try to push this topic and game even more.

Now… these are my reasons, however this problem don´t only affect me. This is a problem that needs to be solved. And this game may not be the solution, however I believe that it is a start towards that solution, by informing people and teach who works in hospitals, why the system does not work.


Nest Invader in the sky

Marc