{"id":4582,"date":"2026-10-14T14:24:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T13:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/casestudies\/?p=4582"},"modified":"2026-10-14T14:24:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T13:24:44","slug":"scrubs-and-suits-simulating-hospital-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/casestudies\/2026\/10\/14\/scrubs-and-suits-simulating-hospital-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Scrubs and Suits: simulating hospital decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scrubs and Suits\u00a0<\/span>brings<\/span> healthcare and business students together through a collaborative <\/span>tabletop simulation<\/span>\u00a0game<\/span>, helping them explore ethical healthcare management, resource allocation, digit<\/span>al<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>innovat<\/span>io<\/span>n<\/span>\u00a0and patient care.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Our challenge \/ opportunity<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Interprofessional education (IPE) is an important part of clinical education, but it often focuses on healthcare disciplines that already work closely together, such as medicine, nursing and pharmacy. These sessions are regarded as very valuable to the student’s learning. However, they need substantial facilitation, specialist equipment, and students from different programmes in the same place at the same time, thus making them challenging to organise.<\/p>\n

We wanted to create something flexible, engaging and easy to implement. Simultaneously, we were also interested in a less familiar but very real professional relationship: the relationship between clinicians and those involved in healthcare management, digital innovation and operational decision-making.<\/p>\n

In healthcare education, we rightly teach students to think holistically about individual patients and their needs. However, when they enter clinical practice they are working within an environment where resources are limited. Thus their decisions may be influenced by patient flow, bed availability, side rooms, admissions, discharge decisions, infection risk, digital services and financial pressures. Those decisions are not purely clinical, but they shape what clinicians can offer.<\/p>\n

From the business perspective, there is a parallel challenge. In digital transformation and healthcare innovation, one of the recurring issues is the communication divide between those who commission or manage digital technologies and the frontline healthcare professionals expected to use them. We saw an opportunity to bring students together early, while they are still learning, so they could begin to understand one another\u2019s worlds, language and priorities. We were all really enthusiastic about that as a concept and recognised its importance.<\/p>\n

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Our solution (approach)<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

We developed Scrubs and Suits, a collaborative tabletop simulation game that brings healthcare and business students together to manage a fictional hospital.<\/p>\n

We began by mapping the themes where healthcare and business overlapped. Several ideas emerged, but we focused on healthcare management, resource allocation, digital innovation and telehealth. We wanted the activity to be fun, accessible and screen-free, not because digital technology was unimportant, but because we wanted students sitting around a table, talking to each other, negotiating and making decisions together.<\/p>\n

The game was designed as a collaborative experience rather than a competitive one. Students work with each other against the challenges posed by the board. In interdisciplinary groups, they take responsibility for running a simulated hospital, making decisions about patient care, departments, budgets and service improvements. They are required to balance individual patient needs with population-level thinking and system pressures.<\/p>\n

The early prototype was deliberately low-cost. We created patient cards, department cards and colourful materials that could be printed, tested and adapted quickly. At one stage the design was more complicated, but playtesting helped us strip it back to the essential learning. We focused on patient journeys and episodes of care, because that gave students a shared language at the boundary between clinical and management thinking.<\/p>\n

Telemedicine was designed to be an important feature of the game. Students can decide whether or not to invest in it and then experience the benefits and tensions that come with that choice. This decision opens up conversations about why digital care may benefit patients, for example by allowing them to stay at home and reducing some hospital risks, while also raising questions about funding, adoption and how value is recognised in healthcare systems.<\/p>\n

We tested the game ourselves, played it with colleagues, and refined the content before using it with students. The final activity is deliberately playful, but the learning is serious. Students encounter ethical dilemmas, operational pressures and competing priorities in a safe environment, then use reflection and discussion to unpack what happened and why it matters.<\/p>\n