SIMULATIONS LIBRARY/PUBLIC HEALTH & CRISIS RESPONSE

Virion-7: The Surge Threshold

A novel pathogen hits Mercy Regional. Beds, ventilators, staff, and the truth told to the public: four teams decide, in real time, whether the hospital holds.

DISCIPLINE

Public Health & Crisis Response

TEAMS

ROUNDS

RUNTIME

~4 hrs

PLAYERS

12–24

MODALITY

In-person or remote

DIFFICULTY

Standard

01 / THE SITUATION

PREVIEW

Forty-eight hours ago, Mercy Regional Medical Center was operating at a manageable 71% bed capacity. That was before the first cluster reports came in from the Eastfield district. Now the Regional Health Authority has confirmed what frontline staff have been whispering about since Tuesday: Virion-7, the novel respiratory pathogen that swept three neighboring counties last month, has arrived, and it has not come quietly. Emergency department presentations are up 340% in two days. The waiting room has spilled into the corridor.

Virion-7 is not COVID-19, but it rhymes with it in the worst ways: a highly transmissible airborne pathogen with a pronounced affinity for respiratory compromise in adults over 50, and an incubation window so short that community spread is outpacing contact tracing. The Authority declared a public health emergency at 06:00, activating the hospital's Surge Response Protocol. What that protocol means in practice (who decides what, who controls what, and who bears the cost) is now being worked out in real time, by you.

Mercy Regional sits at 87% bed capacity, ICU occupancy approaching critical thresholds, and a ventilator and PPE reserve never designed to absorb a surge of this velocity. A supplemental shipment was requisitioned from the State Emergency Health Reserve 18 hours ago. Its status is uncertain. ICU nurses are working back-to-back shifts, and unsafe-conditions conversations are becoming an organizing point. No one has walked out. Yet.

The next several hours decide whether Mercy Regional becomes a model of coordinated surge response or a cautionary tale cited in post-event reviews. The decisions your teams make (about beds, equipment, people, and what the public is told and when) will ripple outward. Other hospitals are watching. The Authority is watching. And a journalist from the Eastfield Courier has already called the communications office twice this morning.

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02 / WHAT PLAYERS PRACTICE

01Coordinate scarce, life-critical resources across competing clinical domains

02Make triage and escalation decisions at a speed staff were never trained for

03Balance operational candor against public trust and the information environment

04Negotiate across teams when no single team controls the whole response

03 / THE ROLES · 4 TEAMS

Emergency Department Command

Mercy Regional's ED leadership, managing the frontline surge and every real-time intake and triage decision.

ICU Management

The intensive-care leadership: the terminus of the surge, where bed, ventilator, and staffing limits decide how many patients the hospital can safely hold.

Public Health Liaison

The hospital's link to the Regional Health Authority, partner agencies, and the public, controlling what is shared, with whom, and when.

Supply Chain Operations AI-PLAYED

The hospital's inventory of ventilators, PPE, and consumables: the structural fulcrum every resource decision flows through.

04 / OPERATIONAL BRIEFING

GATED PREVIEW

Emergency Department CommandROLE SHEET

You are the Emergency Department Command team at Mercy Regional Medical Center. Your department is the first and most visible face of this crisis: every patient presenting with Virion-7 symptoms arrives through your doors before they go anywhere else. Your team includes the ED Medical Director, the Charge Nurse Supervisor, and your operations lead. You have authority over triage classification, emergency intake protocols, and the deployment of ED-assigned staff within your unit. You may also formally request patient diversion to partner facilities, though that decision carries significant reputational and relational weight.

ICU ManagementROLE SHEET

You are the ICU Management team at Mercy Regional. Your unit is the terminus of the surge: every patient who deteriorates beyond what a general ward can support ends up in your care. Your team includes the ICU Medical Director, the ICU Nurse Manager, and a clinical operations coordinator. You have authority over ICU bed allocation, ventilator assignment for ICU patients, and the clinical criteria by which patients are admitted to or stepped down from intensive care. In a surge environment, those criteria become the most consequential document in the building.

Public Health LiaisonROLE SHEET

You are the Public Health Liaison team at Mercy Regional. Your role sits at the intersection of clinical operations, external governance, and public communication, which means you are simultaneously accountable to internal leadership, the Regional Health Authority, partner health systems, and the public. Your team includes the Public Health Liaison Officer, a communications coordinator, and a regional partnerships lead. You do not control beds, ventilators, or staff, but you control something equally consequential: the information environment in which this entire crisis unfolds.

Supply Chain OperationsROLE SHEET

You are the Supply Chain Operations team at Mercy Regional. In normal operations, your work is logistical and largely invisible. In a surge, you become one of the most powerful and most pressured teams in the building. You control the reserve inventory of ventilators, N95 respirators, isolation gowns, gloves, and critical consumables. Every department that needs something above their standard allocation must come through you with a documented request. You have the authority to approve, partially fulfill, defer, or escalate, and in a declared emergency, that authority carries enormous weight.

FULL SCENARIO · GATED PREVIEW

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Full role sheets, the dynamic inject library, the facilitator playbook, and the decision-ledger analytics unlock the moment you request access.

Full role sheets for all four teams
The dynamic inject library: resource shocks, staffing actions, media calls
Facilitator surge-protocol playbook & timing guide
Resource-allocation adjudication tables
Post-exercise decision-ledger analytics

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