Shane Rafferty plays video games for a living. He’s neither a developer nor a ranked professional, but his work revolves around gaming all the same: Rafferty is a gaming technology specialist. As the name suggests, he uses technology—and video games in particular—to provide social and emotional support for hospitalized children and their families.

Though the job description sounds like fantasy, gaming technology specialists are a reality at more than 50 hospitals worldwide. Among them is the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Since August 2021, Rafferty has played dozens of games there, ranging from Mario Kart to Tetris to Super Smash Bros., with hundreds of kids.

Rafferty comes from a health care background, so he’s no stranger to educating patients, distracting them, and helping them cope with diagnoses, but gaming allows him to connect with patients over common interests, too.

“It’s a great way to build rapport with them and break down barriers,” Rafferty says.

Beyond building relationships, he’s also found that playing alongside (or against!) the kids helps them forget they’re in the hospital. It gives them a chance to engage in play, same as their peers.

“They’re sitting down, they’re playing Mario Kart,” Rafferty says, “and they’re not thinking about how they’ve been stuck in the same room for the last month. Instead they’re thinking, ‘I need to get this red shell so I can beat this guy who thinks he’s hot stuff.’”

Being able to offer that reprieve via gaming, which both Rafferty and the kids enjoy, is especially rewarding.

The title “gaming technology specialist” can be a bit of a misnomer, as Rafferty’s day can include everything from bedside gaming sessions to console troubleshooting to consultations with other departments and even donors.

As Rafferty puts it: “I wear a lot of hats.”

Rafferty has three primary tasks at Lurie. The first is to maintain the hospital’s entertainment technology. This includes the consoles in the playroom area on the hospital’s 20 mobile game carts, and any tech loaned out to patients’ individual rooms. He troubleshoots controllers, installs updates, and confirms the appropriateness of the apps downloaded onto the hospital’s iPads. He also orders new equipment as needed.

These are tasks that improve patients’ quality of life. They’re also tasks that might get shifted to the back burner without a dedicated specialist.

“Our child life team is focused on interacting with patients’ families, doing procedure supports, and providing education,” Rafferty says. If a game isn’t working, “they don’t have time to say, ‘Alright, is Minion Rush up to date?’”

Handling the burden of tech maintenance is just one of the benefits of a gaming technology specialist. There’s also Rafferty’s second task to consider, one that informs the first: His job requires him to stay up-to-date on the newest trends in tech and gaming.

In this research Rafferty is never alone. His position is currently funded by a two-year grant from Child’s Play, a game industry charity. Through this partnership Rafferty receives not only donated equipment (such as the hospital’s 3D printer) but also access to the larger gaming technology specialist community, with whom he meets weekly to swap ideas.

Research is one way that Rafferty can address individual patients’ needs. For example, using that donated 3D printer and a modified model Rafferty printed an adaptive holder for paintbrushes. The device includes a ring that slips on to the patient’s hand, and a clip for a brush. It makes the arts more accessible for patients who struggle to hold pens or brushes.

It’s something Rafferty suspects wouldn’t happen without a position like his, because the steps involved fall outside most job descriptions. IT employees may not have the health care background to identify what’s developmentally best for pediatric patients. Doctors and nurses focus on medical care, and child life specialists, who support hospitalized children and their families via education, advocacy, and therapeutic play, may not have the appropriate tech background. For example, to create that adaptive holder, someone would first need to get a 3D printer, and then they’d need to learn how to use it. After that they’d still need to find or create a model.

“Our team members would love to do that,” Rafferty says, “but they’re already overwhelmed.”

It’s an overwhelm that patients may also experience, particularly with lengthy hospital stays. Rafferty’s final task, and his favorite of the three, is to alleviate that via direct interaction. This can range from bedside sessions of Tetris to the use of VR during minor procedures such as dressing changes, blood draws, port accesses, or IV starts.

He also assists with the hospital’s CC TV show, which features a Jackbox Games segment where patients can join in with their phones, bedside.

Child’s Play, the charity providing Rafferty’s grant, was established in 2003. In 2017 they began offering their capacity-building grants to hospitals interested in employing a gaming technology specialist. Since then they’ve funded 35 positions in the United States, Canada, and Kenya.

These grants are one of the organization’s main focuses, according to Kirsten Carlile, Child’s Play’s director of philanthropy and partner experiences.

“We put a lot of emphasis—and a lot of the funds that we raise—toward these positions,” she says.

After all, it’s no easy task to establish a new profession, but for Carlile the benefits are well worth it. Gaming technology specialists make room for play, a crucial aspect of child development.

The benefits of play have been well documented. Research often splits play into three types—unstructured, semi-structured, and structured—with many focusing on unstructured. One such study, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics and cited more than 2,000 times since 2007, noted that play “contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth.” More recent research, including a 2021 study on the impact of the pandemic on play, suggested the same. The importance of play has been noted by the United Nations as well, in Article 31 of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Structured play, which can range from playing catch to playing video games, is important too, though fewer studies look at it. A 2019 study called structured play “a promising approach to improving self-regulation in young children” and a potential way to improve behavior management, such as learning how to take turns. A 2020 study suggested that when it comes to physical activity, structured play was more effective than its unstructured counterpart for improving faculties like memory.

Although play in all its forms is universally important for kids, it isn’t possible to create a universal gaming technology specialist position. What works for a hospital with 20 pediatric beds, for example, may not work for one with 300.

Gaming technology specialists, then, ultimately look different at each hospital. Some are part of child life, while others are considered IT. Some focus on tech, and others on patients. Some work alone, and others have a team of volunteers. Even the official job title changes by location, from “recreation gaming specialist” at John Hopkins in Florida to “therapeutic gaming and digital technology specialist” at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

It’s because of these differences that Child’s Play places very few restrictions on their grant money. One of their only rules is that, by the end of the grant period, the hospital should be able to fund the position on its own. This is why Rafferty occasionally spends time with donors, so he can share his experiences firsthand.

Due to these differences across hospitals, as well as the overall nascency of the position, it’s easiest to answer questions of impact anecdotally. In an effort to find commonalities, Carlile noted that Child’s Play is currently in the first phase of a research study. They plan to publish their data after completing a second, but Carlile says it’s too soon to say when that will occur.

Carlile encourages interested hospitals to reach out to Child’s Play even before applying for a grant. She’s happy to help staff start necessary conversations with their leadership, finance department, or HR. No hospital is too big, or small, to apply.

Individuals can donate money to Child’s Play to support their grants and equipment donations. They can also purchase items directly for specific hospitals using Child’s Play’s wishlist map, which highlights hospitals that have partnered with the organization.

If Child’s Play doesn’t work with your local hospital, other charitable gaming organizations may operate in your area, including Gamers Outreach and Charity Gaming. Both do similar work and support hospitalized children by funding gaming technology specialist positions and/or equipment donations.

Since there is no official registry of gaming technology specialists or which charities work with specific hospitals, the easiest way to support programs near you is to reach out to your local hospital. Some even offer volunteer opportunities, where you just might meet your local specialist.