Operate Now: Hospital Guide, Tips, Tricks & Cheats for Running a Hospital

When Operate Now: Hospital starts with a line that in a “Hospital every day is a matter of life and death and you are in charge now!” which is followed by flashing images of crying mom, doctors cracking under pressure and funeral with a stormy weather, you might get the very awkward impression of the game. Don’t get deceived with a developer description that it is a realistic simulation game and that you will not have the guts for it. The only drama we have experienced is when we had to drop entire game progress due to the latest update and cosmetic changes.

Operate Now: Hospital from Spil Games is partly a surgery simulator and a nice one, but it’s more like a hospital tycoon simulator. You’ll find yourself managing the hospital more than actually holding patient’s life in your hands, although the game is designed to make both things matter. As a new doctor in a recently opened hospital you will be in charge of complete organization which includes shifts, building new departments and making sure the coins are dropping constantly.

Yes, there is lot of things to have in mind, but the game is in overall a relaxing one since you have unlimited time to play it and you’re not competing anyone. We’ll provide you a comprehensive Operate Now: Hospital guide, sharing some things that you have to have your eyes on and few tips that should make your surgeon/manager life easier.

1. Focus On Getting Gold Hearts

Money comes first. You can’t build a hospital with the Hippocratic Oath. Although the main task in the game is to collect money, the real deal is with the gold hearts. You use these to speed up the construction of your departments, to upgrade them, to speed up tasks, to buy much needed consumables, to discharge a patient before time or to exchange them for money. In short – you’ll need them. Contrary to money, which you also need, gold hearts are harder to earn. At the end, real world money are used in the game only to buy gold hearts, so that speaks for itself.

Naturally, the game is designed in such manner to lure you to spend hearts. At the beginning, the game will ask for little of them to rush the construction of new department or to speed up the task you’ve assigned to someone of your staff, but as you progress the price will go higher and hard earned hearts will go in a blink of your eye. Do not spend them easily, be a scrooge.

Since the game is designed in such manner that the time passes even if you don’t play it, and we don’t believe you’re going to be so hooked for the game, it’s sometimes better to wait for the time to pass. If you don’t want to wait for too much, you can allow for some time to pass and then rush the completion for lesser price of gold hearts.

2. Keep Your Eyes On Your Staff

Managing the hospital in the game is not so demanding feature of game. At least it doesn’t demand the entire encyclopedia knowledge and it surely will not ask for quick tactic decisions, but it does need your attention.

First, there is this “stamina” feature of your staff. They are not robots and they can’t work forever. You have to rest them and you do so by either sending them to Break Room or by feeding them. To feed them you’ll have to buy some consumables with your gold hearts – the quick way. The one that we prefer is cheaper and that is to send them to Break Room to have a rest.

Depending on how much stamina they have lost, the longer the rest period is. Soon, as your staff gets bigger, you’ll have to pay more attention to the rest room schedule. You must not let it be idle. The rest room has the countdown bar that shows you how much time is left for the person inside to finish his rest. It is of great help in organizing the rest schedule, so keep your eyes on it.

Second, watch how you spend your money. Don’t be hasty and plan the development of your hospital. Look to build the departments which will get you more money as only with money you can further develop your hospital. For example: Ambulance Garage and Reception are those who are bringing patients to your hospital and thus earning you money, so it’s better to build them at the beginning than another Ward department. it is necessary, but it is not bringing money. If you don’t have this in mind you could easily get stuck at the beginning waiting for eternity to attract enough patients to earn money for new department.

To show that the Ward also counts, you also have to keep your eyes on the top bar and the number of your patients in the examination room and free beds at the ward as both capacities are limited. There is a disbalance of the speed of patient incoming to your hospital and the speed of their treatment, especially the time they spend at the Ward department. You will find that very quickly your capacities will be full and you’re going to have a jam.

Of course, there is an option to immediately discharge a bed for the cost of gold heart! To evade the jam, you will have to upgrade your ward and increase your bed capacities. Since you might not have the money for such upgrade (it can be costly), there is one nice TIP to solve the problem. Take the staff out of the Ambulance Garage or/and Reception and that would stop attracting patients for some time. Then the time will do the rest as patients will be discharged from the Ward. When things get easier, take your staff back on their position.

Another thing to watch is your income. A minor thing, but one that’s supposed to be taken care of. Some of your departments are directly bringing money to hospital with amount and the time needed for income depending on their level. Even if you are not playing the game, the time is passing and the money keeps pouring in. However, departments have limited amount of money they can hold. When the limit is reached it will not collect money any more. Pay attention, not to reach the maximum and let your earned money to waist.

3. Build Vs. Upgrade

When upgrading your departments there are two things to have in mind. The first is to make an evaluation of your current needs and finances as sometimes upgrading is more efficient than building another same department. Second – you have 14 slots for your departments and you should use them wisely.

To make a plan, simply open the store menu – departments tab and you will see which departments you can build and which you can’t any more. This should be of assistance when deciding which departments to build. Also have in mind that you need to find a balance between having necessary capacities for patients and money earning departments.

4. How Steady Are Your Hands?

The most interesting part of the Operate Now: Hospital is definitively the operation simulation, which is not as great as described by the developer, but is definitively a joy to play. Not only that it’s providing fun, but operations (if well performed) are the place where you build your reputation. Reputation is important as it will provide you more money and better rewards for completed tasks.

However, the reputation can be destroyed if you don’t pay attention to what you’re doing. After the operation is ended, reputation is being built on four parameters: a) time you needed to complete the operation, b) health of the patient, c) mistakes you have made during the operation and d) difficulty level of the operation. A+B-C*D = reputation points.

Although in-game tip suggests you to do the operation as quickly and precisely as you can, you will find out that it’s not possible. If you aim for quickness, be sure that you will make mistakes, so your good time result will result with negative mistake points and low health points. The tip is: don’t look at the time counter. Focus yourself on the operation and the tools you are using. A poor stitch will count as mistake and once you make it be sure that your concentration will drop.

At first, operations will not be so complicated and you will have enough time for them and that’s great to build the experience. Even though operations get more and more complicated, and sometimes you will not have too much time for them, you should always focus on the operation instead on time counter.

We hope that these few Operate Now: Hospital tips and tricks are going to be of some help to you because, although not a very complicated game, it’s one that calls for an attention. And please do not let your game reputation deceive you that you are more than capable of operating your pet.