Ways to increase the rate of new patients to the hospital?

[Mist of Majora]

I'm enjoying the free weekend, and I know as your hospital grows, more patients start pouring in (according to the tooltips). I have a 3 star hospital in level 2, and it seems every successive 'doctor has given you a challenge to cure 'x' amount of patients' doubles from the last time.

I did the first two easy, but now it's asking me to cure 40 patients in a time period I never even see that many in my hospital. Is it meant to be an increasing challenge, or is it actually possible to garner up that many patients on short notice?

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

Increase your hospital reputation. High level rooms and staff, etc. You can also save emergencies for when you have a large number of patients. I wouldn't worry too much about those missions once you've completed that hospital. They're entirely optional.

[Mist of Majora]

Thanks for the quick response! I know they're optional, and am enjoying slowly building up my hospital, but was just wondering if there was a mechanic I was missing for my next adventure in hospital #3 haha :)

What do you mean by save emergencies? Do you mean wait to accept the challenge until my hospital is packed with patients?

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

Yeah. You can choose not to accept the emergency until you have a lot of patients already and then move them to the front of the queue so you don't lose them and fail that emergency mission.

Generally, though, those missions give you ample time. 90-120 days to complete and standard patient intake should cover it, assuming you successfully treat most of them.

[Indy]

The patients are derived from the hospital level. If you have extra money, build lots of decorative items in rooms to boost their own star level. Or add more staff and play around with rotations.

Given your description of the problem, it sounds like you don't have marketing yet. When you get it, you can run marketing campaigns to boost patients with specific illnesses and indirectly improve hospital reputation, which also helps drive more people (who will also pay more if you charge them).

Whenever I'm close to hitting a cure X number or X percent of patients, I build more De Lux rooms and power load on marketing. It's fast and almost a 100% cure rate with a moderately skilled doctor.

[Mist of Majora]

Thanks guys - I think I get it basically when it comes to level. And I guess hospital attractiveness is good for patient happiness and showing off to people touring the hospital rather than bringing in new guests (I was hoping for a patient response like 'i went to that shiny hospital, it was so clean, ill bring my friends next time too!' as a patient response)

One last 'dumb' question - at the end of hospital 2 it says to build bigger and more decorative rooms to bring in more customers. We obviously covered the decoration part, but does size really bring in more customers? Or does it just let you fit more stuff?

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

Size increases room rating. Every room has a rating of 1* to 5*. You can get a 5* rating with the smallest room but it means jamming it full of items or spamming gold awards on the walls.

A larger room gives it a bit higher rating by default but also more space to create a nice looking room.

[OldGamer]

Size also matters to the employee as it increases their work environment.

[Mist of Majora]

Cool thanks everyone :)

[Losk Osmanthus 路渐秋凉]

Whoa, this is really helpful.

I always build 5 star rooms and my patients just keep flooding my incompetent nurses.

[Twelvefield]

3 ★ rooms are all you need, mostly. More than that and your rating gets too high too quickly. You only need to build higher ratings to improve morale, and you really only need to do that when specifically asked to do so, otherwise like you say you will be swamped.

[Marlock]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

3 ★ rooms are all you need, mostly. More than that and your rating gets too high too quickly. You only need to build higher ratings to improve morale, and you really only need to do that when specifically asked to do so, otherwise like you say you will be swamped.

that explains why I'm always swamped by hordes of the living-dying while my wife runs a nice and orderly little hospital to great profit despite the sub-optimal rooms (or so I thought)... LOL!

[Felinewolfie]

Originally posted by Mist of Majora:

I'm enjoying the free weekend, and I know as your hospital grows, more patients start pouring in (according to the tooltips). I have a 3 star hospital in level 2, and it seems every successive 'doctor has given you a challenge to cure 'x' amount of patients' doubles from the last time.

I did the first two easy, but now it's asking me to cure 40 patients in a time period I never even see that many in my hospital. Is it meant to be an increasing challenge, or is it actually possible to garner up that many patients on short notice?

You, sir, are an addict.
I fully knew you'd break down
and buy the game :)

[milkygirl]

Just as a little add-on, you won't need it in later hospitals, but I can squeak up to the "cure 80 patients" in early hospitals by increasing the hospital's level. I can usually get level 21-22 in Lower Bullocks and Flottering thanks to a tip from Freiya here on the message boards.

Add 2x3 staff rooms to empty parts of the hospital, making sure to close them after they are made. In each room, you just need the required couch, a few posters to cover attractiveness, and a temperature corrector for Mitton. Stack as many as you can in empty buildings and patient flow will greatly increase, requiring more GPs, diagnosis, and treatment rooms to be built, which also raises the level.