Friday Night at the ER® is an all-industry, award-winning simulation game that challenges teams to collaborate under pressure to improve performance. For more than 30 years, organizations have used it to strengthen teamwork, enhance decision making, and navigate complexity more effectively. It’s available in both tabletop and online formats.
In this high-pressure simulation, teams of four must work together to manage a busy hospital. As department managers, they are responsible for delivering high-quality care while facing rising demand, limited resources, and unexpected delays. If they focus only on their own departments, the situation gets worse, and the organization underperforms. Success requires collaboration beyond silos.
At first, the hospital runs smoothly. Patients and staff come and go, workloads are manageable, and quality care is delivered efficiently. But as midnight approaches, the Emergency Department fills, and the system is suddenly overwhelmed. Pressure mounts as patient surges, staffing shortages, and financial constraints push managers to their limits.
The natural reaction is to double down on individual responsibilities, but this makes things worse. By focusing solely on their own departments, players inadvertently create bottlenecks, delays, and inefficiencies. Only by thinking beyond their roles, collaborating across boundaries, and making strategic trade offs can they turn things around.
The one-hour simulation and two-hour debrief serve as a wake up call, challenging participants to rethink how they contribute to the performance of an entire system. Through facilitated discussion, they explore new strategies for achieving better outcomes and develop skills in cross-functional collaboration, problem solving, and decision making.