Faculty of Medicine

The Health Care Game is an exciting, new, web-based educational teaching tool centred on the health sector. It is suitable for a range of class sizes and comprises a broad range of events and policy issues faced by people in the community, and which involve all health professional groups.

The Health Care Game promotes information-seeking skills, requires participants to interact with each other and the health system, is problem-based and presents issues from the perspective of health consumers who come from a range of cultural and financial backgrounds. The emphasis is on encouraging participants to develop information-seeking skills by interfacing with the complex, diverse and ever changing health system.

The game is based upon a dynamic database of health events experienced by four families. Each event generates problems for the family members. Students are required to seek information - such as how the family will identify and access the services required and the different options available - to address the problems. Links to many health sites contained within the game support students’ information seeking activities.

The game includes a bulletin board and online discussion forum. Students submit their answers to health event questions online and feedback from the course co-ordinator is also sent back online.

The Health Care Game is designed for Australian teachers and students involved with medical, health science or health services management curricula at secondary and tertiary undergraduate or postgraduate level. The Health Care Game will be used in the new medical curriculum at UNSW.

It may be used as the basis for an entire subject, a component of a subject, or in tutorials and provides teachers with a comprehensive teaching and assessment tool complete with researched answers. The events may be edited or new events added, ensuring that they are relevant, and allowing the game to be tailored to different health courses.

Evaluation of the game using pre and post questionnaires, focus groups with students and an analysis of game scores and exam results has demonstrated significant improvements in learning outcomes (Westbrook and Braithwaite, 2001).

Game site
Course co-ordinator site
(User Name: guest; Password: guest)

The Health Care Game was developed by A/Professor Johanna Westbrook (Centre for Health Informatics, associated with School of Public Health and Community Medicine) & A/Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite (Centre for Clinical Governance and School of Public Health and Community Medicine), following receipt of a National Teaching Development Grant from the Committee for University Teaching and Staff Development, Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (CAUT grant) in 1997.

In 2000, the Health Care Game was awarded the National Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) Innovation in the use of technology in teaching award. In 2002, the Game was featured in ‘Medicine and the Internet”, 3rd edition, by McKenzie, BC (Editor) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Westbrook JI, Braithwaite J (2001) The health care game: an evaluation of a heuristic, web-based simulation Journal of Interactive Learning Research 12 (1) 89-104.