Incentive for opening a new department

Hello,

I have enjoyed the game so far by building a small hospital treating up to 90 patients each day while generating a moderate profit. There were two incentives for me to open my first specialized department.

1. to be able to contract Liver TY and thus get more patients/more money for my hospital and
   
2. to discover how specialized departments work.
   

Since opening a department costs quite a lot, it seemed to me that it was important to optimize the existing departments before opening new ones.

So, now, my hospitals works pretty well with only one specialized department. Why would I want to open new departments ? The other specialized departments seem to work the same way so I don't have much curiosity. A critic I read on steam explained that each new department is a copy/paste of the previous one. This doesn't sound exciting. Moreover, as emphasized by this critic (and it matches my understanding of the game so far), opening a new specialized department will split the patient intake across all departments. It would thus reduce the number of patients in the already functional departments and I will have to downsize them and fire some doctors and nurses. I clearly do not want to do that. Also it seems that, overall, this will reduce economies of scale since all departments will be smaller.

I am a bit lost. It seems that I would lose a lot of money by opening a new specialized department. This is counterintuitive as I would have guessed that opening new departments would increase the patient intake. Did I miss something ? What would make you chose to open a new department ?

I guess its just a way of expanding and adding more always growing. Also you can just move doctors around changing their specialty and department rather than firing.

Hi, I'm not sure if any of the designers would like to chime in, but let me mention these two points:
- The departments actually play/feel quite differently - they have the same structure, but the cases are quite different, with different focus on outpatients/inpatients or surgery. For example neurology and cardiology bring the highest challenge and need quick decisions when it comes to treatments.
- Each diagnosis comes with a set payment and the most critical cases at the specialized departments earn you the most, so each department should be viable.

Cilya wrote:Hello,

I have enjoyed the game so far by building a small hospital treating up to 90 patients each day while generating a moderate profit. There were two incentives for me to open my first specialized department.

1. to be able to contract Liver TY and thus get more patients/more money for my hospital and
   
2. to discover how specialized departments work.
   

Since opening a department costs quite a lot, it seemed to me that it was important to optimize the existing departments before opening new ones.

So, now, my hospitals works pretty well with only one specialized department. Why would I want to open new departments ? The other specialized departments seem to work the same way so I don't have much curiosity. A critic I read on steam explained that each new department is a copy/paste of the previous one. This doesn't sound exciting. Moreover, as emphasized by this critic (and it matches my understanding of the game so far), opening a new specialized department will split the patient intake across all departments. It would thus reduce the number of patients in the already functional departments and I will have to downsize them and fire some doctors and nurses. I clearly do not want to do that. Also it seems that, overall, this will reduce economies of scale since all departments will be smaller.

I am a bit lost. It seems that I would lose a lot of money by opening a new specialized department. This is counterintuitive as I would have guessed that opening new departments would increase the patient intake. Did I miss something ? What would make you chose to open a new department ?

also, patients don't necessarily have to be reduced for already functional departments if you're increasing your patient load via insurances. While I have some variation in patient pop across all depts in my hospital, they all receive activity (and frequently more than I can handle).

jan.oxymoron wrote:- The departments actually play/feel quite differently - they have the same structure, but the cases are quite different, with different focus on outpatients/inpatients or surgery. For example neurology and cardiology bring the highest challenge and need quick decisions when it comes to treatments.
- Each diagnosis comes with a set payment and the most critical cases at the specialized departments earn you the most, so each department should be viable.

This is interesting. I will give it a try.

MedJet wrote:also, patients don't necessarily have to be reduced for already functional departments if you're increasing your patient load via insurances.

I was already at the maximum patient intake (90). And even if I use the tweakable xml file to increase the number of patients or to increase the number of contractable insurances, I can always fit all those patients in one unique big specialized department. As I previously said, there is only the Overcure Inc. insurance contract which requires you to have more than one specialized department.

Cilya wrote:

jan.oxymoron wrote:- The departments actually play/feel quite differently - they have the same structure, but the cases are quite different, with different focus on outpatients/inpatients or surgery. For example neurology and cardiology bring the highest challenge and need quick decisions when it comes to treatments.
- Each diagnosis comes with a set payment and the most critical cases at the specialized departments earn you the most, so each department should be viable.

This is interesting. I will give it a try.

MedJet wrote:also, patients don't necessarily have to be reduced for already functional departments if you're increasing your patient load via insurances.

I was already at the maximum patient intake (90). And even if I use the tweakable xml file to increase the number of patients or to increase the number of contractable insurances, I can always fit all those patients in one unique big specialized department. As I previously said, there is only the Overcure Inc. insurance contract which requires you to have more than one specialized department.

Well, what exactly do you want to see? Obviously if you prefer to have only one specializing dept that's your game choice. If you want something more and do not what that something more is then??? Outside of distinctly new features (depts that perform procedures that are vastly different than those in the game now) the actual activity of a hospital outside of new procedures and equipment is pretty mundane. As I see it the challenge particularly with this game is to build (without cheating, or perhaps even using the grant monies) to build a "successful" hospital whatever successful means to you.