Gaming for Healthcare: A Bibliometric Analysis in Business and Management

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize and classify the literature linking gaming for healthcare and management phenomena. 
 
 An objective bibliometric analysis is conducted, supported by subjective assessments based on studies focused on the linking of gaming for healthcare and management fields. 
 
 From the analysis and its evaluation, three clusters depicting literature linking gaming for healthcare and management phenomena are showed: management and governance public/private healthcare system; gaming and knowledge/strategic management; management health/medical insurance system using game theory. Moreover, the study shows the limits of existing literature on this topic and proposes future research topics.
 
 This is one of the first attempts to comprehend the research stream which, over time, has paved the way to the intersection between gaming for healthcare and management fields.

Games and Rewards: A Scientometric Study of Rewards in Educational and Serious Games

“…The data seems to suggest that the body of literature is growing in this field as game design and game elements are among the most frequent word bigrams in Table 2. Although studies that use and study different rewards in gamification intervention studies exist [19], [31], bibliometric studies [29] VOLUME 10, 2022 and point systems for health [30] it is interesting to note that even though game design elements represent high co-occurrence in this data set, no specific reward types such as access, facility, sustenance, glory, praise, or sensory feedback (as categorized by [17]) is seen in this data set. Intrinsic motivation is near the top of Table 2, but the bigram extrinsic motivation has not reached a similar occurrence in the data set.…”

“…Bibliometric studies in games and gamification have been done before, such as a healthcare-focused analysis about gaming [29], point systems in games for health [30], and gamification in education focusing on researchers, institutions, and themes [31]. The datasets were obtained by forming a search string through experimentation and combination as presented in [30].…”

“…The datasets were obtained by forming a search string through experimentation and combination as presented in [30]. Bibliometric studies such as [29] and [31] include various data points from the dataset such as co-occurrence of keywords, yearly term frequency and yearly production of research. The availability of information and number of applications available to mobile phones has increased, and the applications have diversified in the past two decades [32].…”

Virtual Healthcare: A Literature Review in Business and Management Field

“…IC and digital technologies are completely changing the healthcare field (Sousa et. al., 2019;Izzo, Camminatiello, 2020) especially after an incredible change of the scenario due to Covid-19 pandemic emergency (Cobianchi, Pugliese, 2020). Social distancing, together with the difficulty to give cures to an enormous number of patients in fact put on evidence the necessity of telemedicine and digital healthcare.…”

System dynamics and bio‐medical modeling

“…These views have culminated in the growth of simulation models, including interactive simulation games or (management) flight simulators that are gaining popularity as an interdisciplinary bridge between physicians, students, and other disciplines that attempt to formalize physiological relations through the process of modeling. These allow the user to test the possible effects of a set of treatment options on a virtual patient (Izzo and Camminatiello, 2020; Sokolowski et al ., 2014).…”