As healthcare focuses more on outcome-based care, the opportunity for gamification in the industry increases. For example, a doctor/nurse/caregiver could be scored on the compliance effectiveness of his/her manic-depressive patients in maintaining their lithium regimen. In such a case, it would first be important to score each patient, providing rewards for consistent compliance (e.g., pharmacy discounts, sponsored benefits, or non-economic benefits such as appealing photos). Adding the doctor/nurse/caregiver as a teammate to the patient and empowering him/her to prompt the patient to take the prescribed medication would put "skin in the game" for the medical professional. A healthcare professional with a good patient compliance score would like be more in demand than others. Insurance programs might eventually recognize the benefits of high compliance and provide financial incentives to the caregivers for achieving better compliance outcomes.
Similarly, healthcare institutions could provide variable pay to their staff for reducing the need for return visits by the patient (because of obtaining proper treatment the first time).
Of course, such gamification systems must be built with care to prevent the system, itself, from being "gamed."
