When Healthcare Becomes a Target The Impact of Hybrid Warfare on Prehospital Emergency Care
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Abstract
Hybrid warfare increasingly targets civilian healthcare infrastructure through cyber operations, infrastructure sabotage, disinformation, and energy disruption. Paramedics operate at the frontline of these system-level threats, positioned at the intersection of emergency healthcare delivery, public safety, and societal resilience. This editorial examines how hybrid warfare directly and indirectly affects paramedic practice and prehospital emergency care systems.
Drawing on recent international examples, the paper highlights how secondary system failures, including disrupted communications, loss of digital documentation, impaired rostering, supply chain interruption, and reduced hospital throughput, fundamentally alter paramedic decision-making and operational safety in the field. Growing dependence on integrated digital platforms, combined with reduced analogue redundancy and a workforce trained primarily in technology-enabled environments, increases vulnerability during prolonged disruption.
The editorial argues that recognising hybrid warfare as a core concern for paramedicine is essential for patient safety, professional preparedness, and resilient prehospital emergency care systems.
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