The Wellness Games - Creating and Implementing a Wellness Game

The mission of the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library (EHSL) is to advance and transform education, research, and health care through dynamic technologies, evidence application, and collaborative partnerships. A burnout and satisfaction survey administered to EHSL faculty in fall 2016 found 42% of members experienced burnout. The library contributes to the success of health professionals, students, researchers and the community - if we aren't well, how can we help our community?

CREATING AND IMPLEMENTING A WELLNESS GAME Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library V1. Tallie Casucci, MLIS; V2. Sarah Dickey; Jessi Van Der Volgen, MLIS, AHIP; Peter Strohmeyer; Donna Baluchi PROJECT VISION PROGRESS TO DATE: created a team-based game where employees collected points for wellness related activities. V1 game participants celebrated with an awards lunch in June. V2 was launched fall 2017 and is going better since there's quicker turn-arounds for new games. ROADBLOCKS & BARRIERS: No access to funds to support technology, awards, or food. Project could not require ‘more work' for participants. VALUABLE LESSONS LEARNED: There are larger underlying wellness concerns for library personnel that the game simply cannot address. Game has encouraged more socializing and comradery. Project Insights THE WELLNESS GAMES The mission of the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library (EHSL) is to advance and transform education, research, and health care through dynamic technologies, evidence application, and collaborative partnerships. A burnout and satisfaction survey administered to EHSL faculty in fall 2016 found 42% of members experienced burnout. The library contributes to the success of health professionals, students, researchers and the community - if we aren't well, how can we help our community? BASELINE ANALYSIS & INVESTIGATION IMPROVEMENT DESIGN & IMPLEMENTATION When we examined our baseline state we found: To increase wellness and colleague interactions we designed: • Informal walking interviews were conducted to look for burnout themes. We found many employees felt a lack of appreciation and little sense of community. • Wellness game: See rules and objectives below. When examining strategies for engagement we found: • Celebrating Wellness: At the end of the game we celebrated with a potluck lunch and awards ceremony. • Serious games1,2 can be excellent tools for engagement and learning. The Design Box3 methodology is a common tool used to design games. GOALS & RESULTS 1 2 3 Improve appreciation and recognition: 69% say game encouraged appreciation of colleagues. Encourage socializing with colleagues: 84% say game encouraged socializing with colleagues. Recognize personal wellness choice: 72% say they would play game again. Figure 1. Break room game boards, from Game 1 (version 1). • Wellness award nominations: Anyone could nominate a colleague for an award of their choosing; serious or funny. o Large trophy was given to the team with the most points and is on display in the break room. Figure 2. Digital game boards, from Game 2 (version 2). o Certificate awards were given to all nominees and many post their certificates in their workspaces. To communicate with participants we used: • Game boards: Posted in the break room to encourage collisions during Game 1 (Figure 1). Changes were made to Game 2 (Figure 2) based on participant feedback; reporting and boards went digital with live dashboards. • Regular reminders: emailed to employees and team captains encourage them to send targeted messages to their members. WELLNESS GAME - RULES & OBJECTIVES • Participants are assigned to teams with colleagues who worked in different departments/physical spaces. • Teams report individual activities related to appreciation, social, mental, and physical wellness for points. • Each activity is worth 1 point, but social wellness activities get a bonus point. • Team with the most points wins trophy and bragging rights! 1. Susi, T., Johannesson, M., & Backlund, P. (2007). "Serious games: An overview." 2. Stapleton, Andrew J. (2004). "Serious games: Serious opportunities." Australian Game Developers Conference, Academic Summit, Melbourne. 3. Altizer, R. and Zagal, J. (2014). "Designing Inside the Box or Pitching Practices in Industry and Education." Proceedings of DiGRA 2014. https://www.eng.utah.edu/~zagal/Papers/altizer_zagal_designboxDiGRA.pdf RESILIENCY CENTER | ECCLES HEALTH SCIENCES LIBRARY