From badges to inner drive: motivation and lasting change in digital patient programmes

“I know what I should do, but I just can't manage it.” Do you recognise that sentence from your patients?

In a health service that is becoming increasingly digital, we need to ask ourselves whether our solutions are designed to support real people, with real lives, in making difficult changes. That was the starting point for the webinar “From badges to inner drive”, which Youwell held on 27 November 2025.

When life gets in the way

Many digital health solutions use gamification, such as points, badges and reminders, to create engagement. But what happens when life gets in the way, and the patient is in the middle of something difficult? Gamification alone is then not always enough.

Three themes

The webinar took participants behind the scenes of Youwell's work on digital patient programmes, with practical examples and insight from real projects. Three themes were central:

Why classic gamification does not always work. How Youwell works with the ADKAR model, a model for change work, to support mastery. And what actually works when the patient's everyday life is complex and unpredictable.

The aim is to design health services that support people, not just users, and that build inner motivation and lasting change.

Chief executive Øyvind Grimsgaard explains why this matters:

If you manage to motivate and engage the patient, you can create an active patient role and mobilise the patient's own resources. That gives better results and relieves the health service, and thus a more sustainable health service. But then the question is how to achieve the motivation and the change. It is (unfortunately) not as simple as just “throwing some” gamification at the solution.

- Øyvind Grimsgaard, CEO of Youwell