The implementation of videogames in healthcare: The case of Nintendo Wii® in rehabilitation

The main objective of this work was to answer the question “How are videogames implemented in healthcare organizations to be used as therapy instruments?”. This question emerged in the intersection of the recent increasing interest in the use of this type of technologies in therapy, with the importance of the implementation process for organizations to use a technology in its full potential. A multiple case study was performed, using three cases of implementations of Nintendo Wii console as a therapy instrument in rehabilitation clinics. The cases were used to compare the implementation of the same technology in organizations with the same core activity. The implementation processes were characterized and compared in light of the well-established literature about implementations of technologies, which led to a preliminary conceptual generalization of the implementation of videogames in healthcare organizations when they are intended to be used as therapy tools, highlighting the key characteristics of such projects. From this research it was possible to conclude that when adopting a console such as Nintendo Wii with rehabilitation purposes, the adoption decision seems to be predominantly informal; the stage of preparation of the implementation (when therapists conveniently prepare themselves to start using the console in their treatments) is quite important for the implementation process; the implementation of a technology such as Nintendo Wii occurs as a mutual adaptation process although with characteristics of a learning implementation, where adaptations occur mostly in the adopter; and, even though there may not be in place the best conditions to use the technology in its full potential, the efforts to routinize it may help overcoming the resistance to use it that results from those lack of conditions