"My grandfather, both my parents and my wife are all doctors," explains Sam Glassenberg on how he came to the medical world from the gaming industry. "When I enrolled to study computers and even a masters' degree at Stanford, they suggested, 'perhaps medicine?' When I advanced to the gaming industry, my father would say perhaps you'll come with me on a visit to the surgical theater, in case you change your mind one day. The culmination was when I won a technology Emmy for video games graphics. My father said, 'It's nice but in our family it's a Nobel Prize that's important."
What eventually broke you?
"One day my father said, 'You're already too old for medicine but at least do something productive with this gaming of yours. Develop for me an application that will teach doctors how to do a laryngoscopy.' I worked on it over a few weekends and uploaded a game to the app store. After two years my father asked how many people had downloaded it and it turned out that about 100,000 doctors had played it. We accidentally developed one of the most popular doctor training games to date. It also turned out that someone had already done a study on their own and showed that the product improves performance."
This was how medical video game and app company Level Ex was born. The company initially developed simulation games for training doctors on phones. "Today the games are so detailed," he says. "You can take an eye that was designed for a game like Call of Duty, and it will be much more detailed than the eye that appears in the textbooks or the simulation games that there were. We use the powers of the gaming market to simulate realistic movement and realistic sounds."
Diagnosis in several steps
Over time, Level Ex expanded its arsenal of mobile games. So, for example, the company developed types of card games and strategic board games in which doctors must arrive at a clear diagnosis within a few moves, with examination cards in their hands, some of which are more expensive than others. The games are based on real cases. In another game the aim is to manage a disease of a patient with complex health problems. The player must choose an operationally and economically reasonable amount of drugs, the combination of which will not cause harm to the patient.
"This is how we try to improve doctors' skills, while at the same time allowing this busy and pressured target audience to play," says Glassenberg.
In 2020 Level Ex was acquired by German medical software and hardware technology company Brainlab for an undisclosed amount and it today operates as an independent company within Brainlab.
It's possible to experience failure
The gaming industry is known for luring players into spending more and more time playing games. How do you do this for the medical industry?
"Exactly the same way. Take Angry Birds for example. The first time you try to hit the pig with the bird, you'll probably miss and the pigs will laugh at you. You'll feel frustrated and want to try again. After a few times you'll usually succeed, and then it's so beautiful – explosions and music. The reward reinforces the movement you did, and now you can do it better, and it's also rewarding. That's the secret of gaming.
"With us, instead of laughing pigs, we will for example play the beeping of the oxygen meter, which changes its frequency when the patient is in distress. The doctors are super sensitive to this beeping, it stresses them out. When they succeed in the game and the soothing frequency returns, it is a significant reward."
Won't this create a lack of urgency when there is a real emergency?
"On the contrary. The medical market is considered conservative because doctors are very afraid to practice on patients. But humans learn from failure. We want to allow doctors to experience this as well. Games allow them to practice a procedure many times, and it is a fact that our studies show improved performance."
What about games for patients? There used to be hope that they could change lifestyle habits to cope with various illnesses.
"We started to enter this field with products that teach patients how to use an asthma inhaler or how to manage diabetes. Other companies have interesting products called 'digital medicines', and they are really designed to change the wiring in the brain with the help of a game, for example vision training games or trauma or attention disorder treatment through biofeedback.
"As for changing lifestyles, I think so far they haven't done it that well. You have to somehow make the task fun, by creating a perfect ratio between frustration and reward, or using tricks like strategy, collecting, upgrading, decision making, stories, and puzzles. If you try to give game points or medals for something that is not fun, you have not made it fun."
You recently received a large grant from NASA
"In space, the body changes, for example the heart becomes rounder. Today, medical imaging is performed remotely by a doctor on the ground. But if you go too far, for example when there are flights to Mars, it is impossible to communicate with the spacecraft without a delay in the transmission, so the medical personnel on the mission will have to learn visualization on their own. We developed a special game that guides them with the help of visualization adapted to what happens to the body in space."
The Israel advantage
Glassenberg built his career in the gaming industry at LucasArts, where he designed games based on the Star Wars movie, before moving to Microsoft's gaming division. In 2008 he became CEO of Israeli company Funtactix, which was acquired by Teddy Sagi's Playtech in 2016, which was when he founded Level Ex.
Glassenberg recalls that already 20 years ago he would attend gaming conferences and tell anyone who was willing to listen that it was worth investing in the Israeli gaming industry, which was then tiny. "Since then, Israel has become a leader in the field," he says. "About 8% of the international gaming industry originates from Israeli or Israeli-affiliated companies, and now the Israeli healthcare industry has the opportunity to take advantage of these capabilities to be at the forefront of gaming for medicine. The Israelis have an understanding of AI, which is still lacking in the medical field. I'm sure that the flourishing Israeli gaming industry has a lot of people like me who want their parents to be proud of them."
Does your father play your games?
"A lot and he gives me a lot of feedback."
Do you think he is proud of you now?
Glassenberg smiles. "I think he is."
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on September 10, 2024.
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