Speaker

Name: Games for Health Europe Conference
Start: 2026-03-30T09:00
End: 2025-03-31T18:00

Speaker Info

Biography: Bard Wartena is a digital health innovator dedicated to creating playful, interactive experiences that promote mental and physical well-being. Drawing on expertise in game development and psychology, his work focuses on co-design and design for autonomy as catalysts for meaningful innovation. Bard has led design research initiatives in health and well-being, collaborating with diverse target audiences. Currently a senior researcher at the Lectoraat Digitale Innovatie in Zorg en Welzijn and a lecturer in the Master Health Innovation program, he champions the intersection of human centered design and healthcare to reshape how we understand and manage health.

Summary: Take Care of Karen is a curriculum embedded, card based serious game that helps students practise the conversations that decide whether an innovation is actually used. The game is built from recurring implementation breakdowns seen in earlier health and social care innovation projects, such as delayed pilots, low training uptake, stakeholder fatigue, shifting priorities, and time pressure that turns good intentions into postponement. Students play in groups of 3 to 6 and rotate roles as Professional, Karen (a peer playing a realistic resistance stance), and Observer. Each short round uses an implementation scenario from innovation practice, a resistance profile capturing patterns like overload, gatekeeping, scepticism, or control seeking, and optional modifiers such as deadline pressure, stakeholder visibility, or technology uncertainty. The Professional applies a limited set of technique cards drawn from practical communication and facilitation toolkits (ANNA, LSD, OEN, NIVEA, OARS, NVC, DESC, 4G, Leary) to reach a concrete project outcome, for example agreement on a next step, a shared constraint, or a co created decision. A simple Heat meter and concise rubric structure peer feedback and make skill progression visible. We present the game design, facilitation script, and an evaluation approach focused on confidence, observed skill use, and transfer into students’ ongoing innovation projects.