It was an undeniably powerful and fulfilling experience for everyone who joined us for the 2026 Digital Health Festival. With 350 exhibitors and 8000 attendees spread across 11 theatres, the event provided a comprehensive look at where healthcare technology is heading and what areas need filling in this giant digital health boom.
For the Canberra Cyber Hub delegation, the biggest takeaway was in learning exactly how the sector currently approaches cybersecurity, interoperability, and compliance, and what gaps we can fill. There was also a big focus of how companies of various maturity levels are all coming together to work on a common problem, and the power in leveraging this.
Dr. Vicki Gardiner, the COO of the Canberra Cyber Hub, noted this, saying "what I found most valuable at DHF was the conversations; from start-ups, to vendors, to end users, everyone was on a different cybersecurity journey, but all were interested in what our Canberra companies had to offer."
From across the few days, we gained valuable insights into the inner workings of the digital health sector… Here are some of our key takeaways:
- Presenters observed that developers often launch products without co-designing them alongside allied health professionals. Bypassing this step isolates software systems, prevents interoperability, and ultimately stalls clinical adoption at large scales.
- Procurement pathways are very different across different areas of health; the processes are highly dependent on if you’re mainly targeting clinics, hospitals, or government bodies.
- As software rolls out at unprecedented speeds, there is an exponentially increasing need for improved cyber safety. The data stored by many systems is often highly vulnerable and confidential.
By the end of the festival, our delegations gained practical insights into overcoming these barriers, the exact pain points that current professionals in the field are facing, and how businesses can contribute to filling those gaps.
Beyond product design and procurement, critical infrastructure experts and regulatory professionals dictated other valuable discussions. These unpacked the national framework for digital health standards, explaining how the Conformance Framework will ensure software safety requirements across the industry. Additional technology roadmaps showcased a deliberate shift toward consumer-controlled health data, including the unfolding developments with the 1800 Medicare app and automated clinician alerts.
While in Melbourne, Canberra Cyber Hub organised a roundtable for discussions between Canberra businesses and Melbourne-based critical infrastructure organisations, Austrade and the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency. Discussions frequently revolved around the need for security for both current technologies and future innovations in critical infrastructure.
Dr. Gardiner added, "The round table certainly showed that the intersection of technologies, at the same time as responsible product development and commercialisation, causes significant tension. A common topic of exploration was building resiliency, and integrating secure practices innately, to support the healthy development of a booming sector."
The 2026 Digital Health Festival was really an unmissable event, packed with invaluable takeaways that provided us with the necessary blueprints for navigating through an increasingly complex and rapidly expanding sector. For organisations designing health technologies or looking to enter the digital health market with existing solutions, next year’s tradeshow is definitely one to keenly look out for. The conversations started, the leads generated, and the lessons learnt will propel attendees for many years to come.
Canberra Cyber Hub is considering hosting a delegation to next year’s Digital Health Festival. We will be taking a different approach to our past conference involvement which we hope will provide a much greater return on investment for a lower cost to companies. Please reach out if you have an interest. Places will be limited.
