The brief

Northern Health have a workforce of 4,500 doctors, nurses, caterers, cleaners and admin staff – all of whom are required to undergo accreditation training and assessment, comprising some 300 question sets.

Traditionally, this is done in paper format, resulting in the participation and retention rates being modest at best. The assessment process itself builds anxiety as the accreditation assessors randomly select hospital employees at their workplace to quiz them.

The result

We created a gamified mobile experience that not only delivered the required content but allowed staff to form teams to share knowledge with and compete against their colleagues. The reward system encouraged player participation and contributions, enabling players to provide support and help each other via a live chat facility.

Players could progress by ‘levelling up’ based on their attempts, successes and contribution, earning badges as individuals and teams. Physical rewards of coffee vouchers were also provided and live leaderboards were displayed on screens placed around the hospital.

User experience

The great success achieved with this project was to let users engage with the information on their own terms. In five- or ten-minute usages – in a break, at the bus stop, relaxing at home – wherever and whenever they wanted to. This was a complete departure from how traditional content like this was both delivered and tested.

Outcomes

Accreditation training saw a 30% increase in participation, supported by the hospital achieving an exceptionally high accreditation score, vastly improved from past years. Healthcare Heroes has since been run at other hospitals with similar success and is now being rolled out across the country.