This analytical case study describes the launch, operation, and decommissioning of a Finnish reserve hospital during a health crisis. Participants in frontline care for patients with COVID-19 faced high pressure where patients’ lives were at stake, resources were limited, and a race against time was the norm. The case illustrates how the new hospital was established in a single week and provided care for COVID-19 patients for five months (January–April 2022). It also discusses how professional boundaries can blur in temporary organizations. A wide variety of actors came together at this hospital, successfully breaking old habits and ways of doing things as they were forced to find new, innovative ways of organizing their work.

• Understand systemic issues related to boundaries, power relations, hierarchies, ethics, and resources within organizations.
• Understand how hierarchical structures influence traditional organizational functions and management practices.
• Understand how professional and organizational boundaries shape roles, behaviours, and interprofessional collaboration.
• Analyze the role of organizational culture in temporary, crisis-driven organizations, as well as how it adapts under pressure.
• Identify and reflect on ethical challenges.
• Evaluate the effects of crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, on individual motivations and organizational goals.
• Identify the factors that enable and hinder new forms of collaboration between professions in response to emergent challenges.