Global healthcare leaders turn to Israel for hospital resilience lessons

Healthcare leaders from Europe, Asia, North America and Africa gathered this week at Tel Aviv Sourasky University Medical Center to learn how Israel has kept its hospitals operating during war, missile attacks and mass-casualty emergencies.

The visit reflects growing international interest in Israel's hospital resilience strategies, developed through decades of responding to conflicts and refined during the June 2025 war with Iran.

Hospital executives, nurses, emergency physicians and operations managers shared firsthand experience in maintaining medical services while protecting patients and staff under wartime conditions.

“Every country faces different threats, but hospitals everywhere ask the same questions,” explained Dr. Daniel Trotzky, deputy medical director and director of emergency services and preparedness at Tel Aviv Sourasky University Medical Center. 

“How do you protect patients while continuing to function? How do you make critical decisions with incomplete information? How do you maintain trust during uncertainty? EMPC was created to openly share what we have learned through experience while learning from colleagues who bring their own perspectives and challenges,” Trotzky added.

The conversations between Israeli and international healthcare officials could pave the way for closer future cooperation and knowledge sharing in the field of hospital resilience. 

“Healthcare has always advanced through international collaboration,” stated Prof. Eli Sprecher, CEO of Tel Aviv Sourasky University Medical Center.

“Today, resilience has become part of that collaboration. No hospital should have to build its preparedness in isolation. By bringing together healthcare leaders from around the world, we create an opportunity to exchange practical knowledge, challenge assumptions and strengthen our collective ability to care for patients under any circumstances,” Sprecher explained. 

Israeli cities came under repeated Iranian missile attacks during the joint American and Israeli strikes on the Iranian regime earlier this year, known in Israel as Operation Roaring Lion and in the U.S. as Operation Epic Fury.

Much of Israel’s hospital system moved underground amid the Iranian attacks on Israeli population centers.

In early April, U.S. President Donald Trump declared a ceasefire.

However, Israeli hospitals partially moved back underground in June after the Iranian regime resumed its missile strikes on the Jewish state amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Iranian-backed terrorist militia Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel responded with aerial strikes on regime targets across Iran. 

Israel’s healthcare system absorbed valuable lessons from the June 2025 war with Iran. In March, the Israeli Health Ministry released lessons from the 2025 war.

Dr. Hagar Mizrahi, the head of the Health Ministry’s Medical Division, addressed the challenges of delivering professional care to patients during wartime. 

“Because of the proximity and crowding, infections are what concern us most on the medical level. The beds are so close that it takes only one family member touching a curtain to potentially transmit infection to additional patients,” Mizrahi explained. 

“The first rule is preventing crowding – discharge, discharge, discharge. One arm is discharge to the community, a second arm is home hospitalization, in order to protect those who remain hospitalized,” she revealed. 

The experiences shared during this week's gathering are expected to help healthcare systems around the world strengthen their own emergency preparedness plans as hospitals increasingly confront wars, natural disasters and other large-scale crises.