Every agenda writer worth their salt knows you have to position your event as on the cutting edge of your industry.

Predicting what’s going to be big nine months before it is, writing tomorrow’s headlines before they happen, and trying to see around corners.

If we could do that, we wouldn’t be humble agenda writers. We’d be genius investors, industry visionaries, or building the next healthtech unicorn. 

Fortunately for us, that’s exactly our audience. The best-of-the best. An All-Time, All-Star lineup of Europe’s greatest healthcare minds. An entire herd of GOATs.

You’ll separate the fads from the future, spotlight the breakthroughs worth betting on, and set the direction of travel for the next decade of health and care. For us, the words are the easy bit. It’s you, our audience, that makes the predictions worth listening to.

The Gartner Hype Cycle turns 30 this year. If it were human, it might be settling down, having a child, maybe buying a Volvo and moving to the country.

Sadly for the Hype Cycle, it’s still needed in tech circles. Its stages, disputed though they are, are instantly recognisable: Trigger > Expectation > Disillusionment > Gradual uptake > Plateau. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

So where does AI in healthcare sit? Expectations have clearly peaked. Normally disillusionment follows fast - hacking away at investment, slicing through hype, and leaving fire-sales disguised as M&A in its wake. But the hype train rolls on. All aboard the AI express: Next stop, Utopia.

Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm warned of that treacherous gap between early promise and mainstream adoption. Healthcare AI didn’t just cross it. It leapt, and landed squarely in the everyday: in your clinics, your patient portal, your grandmother’s phone. For better or worse, the chasm is behind us. AI has stepped outside the hype cycle.

Hollywood, bless it, has tried. They really have. Since the early 80s, they’ve sought to make IT cool. Cult classics from WarGames to Tron* gave us hackers in dark rooms, green code spilling across the screen, cooly scanning the impenetrable text for vulnerabilities, before the inevitable ‘I’m in’. End scene. Cue synthesizer.

But IT, particularly in healthcare, is rarely that cinematic. Patient records are worth more than credit cards on the black market, and ransomware groups know that. Ransomware downtime costs other industries billions. In healthcare, it costs lives. However late-stage our capitalism gets, that’s always going to be more valuable.

So why are we still treating hospital IT as a niche back-office function? This isn’t compliance, it’s survival. Pentests aren’t vanity projects for the C-suite, they’re dress rehearsals. Regulations aren’t chores, they’re shields. The people building, breaking, and defending these systems should be seen as cultural drivers, not just infrastructure drones. They’re an invisible, digital frontline. As vital to patient safety as the clinicians who diagnose, treat, and care for patients every day.

To truly protect patients, healthcare needs to step outside the idea that cyber is someone else’s problem. The people defending the data are defending care itself.

Call it reframing the mainframe. Call it making cyber sexy. Either way, it’s time to admit: hackers already love hospitals. The big question is how hospitals can make sure that love is unrequited.

*OK, fine. Tron was cool. The wider point still stands.

1972: The first EPR went live.

1972 + 1 day: The first question about EPR interoperability. (Probably)

In the 19,889 days that have elapsed between The Regenstrief Institute turning on their EPR and the first day of HLTH Europe 2026, interoperability has remained an out-of-reach Nirvana. A promised land where data flows seamlessly, and clinicians can finally focus on patients instead of platforms.

But times are changing. Interoperability has always faced two key challenges: data siloes and a lack of standardisation.  AI isn’t a magic wand, but it’s proving a powerful bridge - cleaning messy data, translating formats, and helping systems finally speak the same language.

Autonomous Database Tuning may sound like a 1970s prog rock band, but it’s just one of the many ways AI is kickstarting the second age of interoperability. Studies already show AI can improve data quality within EHRs.

The future of interoperability won’t be built by those who stay inside the walls. It’s already being built by those who realise AI has already opened the door. Are we approaching the threshold of the interoperability promised land?

Returning for a second year, the Provider Stage at HLTH Europe was one of 2025’s standout successes. Hundreds of provider leaders joined us on stage across the event, with thousands more in the audience.

It would be easy to focus on the negatives in the world of providers - workforce challenges, ageing populations, cyber risks - the list goes on and on. But we choose not to do that. Across Europe and beyond, provider leaders are doing incredible things - with tech and without - and we choose to celebrate that.

In 2026, we’re doubling down on that momentum, bringing even more leaders to the forefront with sharper debates, bigger ideas and practical solutions that set the pace for Europe’s health systems. It’s where providers won’t just shape the conversation - they’ll shape the future.

By show of hands, imaging professionals. How bored are you of events using the ‘every image tells a story’ line on you?

Let’s assume most hands are in the air. If you’re reading this in public, you can stop now before someone asks if you’re lost.

Radiology doesn’t need another poetic tagline. It needs progress. The tech is moving faster than the systems that use it. Data is richer, but workflows are not. Everyone’s talking about AI, yet few are fixing the fundamentals.

HLTH.rad cuts through the noise. Fewer buzzwords, more substance. What’s working, what’s failing, and what imaging looks like once the hype clears. The world’s leading imaging voices. In one place. Having the conversations that matter, the decisions that count, and the future that’s taking shape.

Sure, every picture tells a story. But the next chapter starts when you change the angle, step outside, and see things differently.

The Health Transformation Summit has quickly become HLTH Europe’s most senior, most exclusive gathering - a place for decision-makers to exchange ideas with honesty, ambition, and urgency. In 2025, it brought together over 200 policymakers, provider and payer CEOs, and innovators for two days of sharp debate, candid exchange, and high-impact networking. 

Ministers, regulators, and executives from across Europe and beyond used the Summit to tackle the big questions shaping the future of health systems.

In 2026, the Summit returns to Amsterdam with an even more ambitious programme. Expect more Ministers, more CEOs, and more space for the kind of closed-door conversations that spark real change. With curated roundtables, case studies, and the exclusive Summit dinner, this is where Europe’s healthcare leaders don’t just talk transformation - they drive it.

Pharma has always celebrated the breakthrough - the molecule, the cure, the moment. But somewhere between regulation, risk and relentless optimisation, innovation started to look more like administration. The walls that once protected science started keeping it in.

The science is as strong as ever. GLP-1s are reshaping metabolic care, vaccines are transforming collaboration, and data is rewriting discovery. Yet, pharma’s next leap won’t come from a new compound, but from reimagining how discovery connects to real patient journeys.

Progress now depends on the courage to step outside the process: to rethink pipelines, partnerships, and patient experience. The future of pharma belongs to those who design for collaboration, not control; curiosity, not compliance.

The real breakthrough is not another drug. It’s a mindset shift: science that collaborates, prototypes, and learns from outside its own orbit. The ones that do will not just make better treatments. They will build better systems.

Because the real side effect of courage, collaboration, and curiosity?

Innovation.

Health is not just about hospitals and waiting lists, it is about trust, confidence, and the choices we make as a society. It’s built in classrooms, kitchens, and communities - in every choice, every conversation, every moment of trust. In a world where misinformation spreads quickly, building belief in evidence and care has become one of the central challenges for public health.

Public health itself is changing. It is moving beyond campaigns and guidelines to confront misinformation, digital echo chambers, and declining trust. Building credible voices, transparent data, and consistent communication has become as vital as the science itself.

Public health needs to be back at the centre of the conversation. It’s where the pressures of policy, prevention and behaviour collide, and where early investment creates the biggest long-term gains. Hearing directly from young people and those working across communities brings realism to the debate and helps shape responses that actually work.

If we can strengthen trust, respond to emerging needs, and place communities, children, and young people at the centre, we can create a healthier, fairer and more resilient future for everyone. Health is not just about hospitals and waiting lists, it’s about the stories we choose to write together.

Menopause does not arrive quietly. It reshapes mood, metabolism, sleep, intimacy and identity - often all at once. The treatments most often offered can be blunt tools, leaving many stuck in cycles of trial and error. Could GLP-1 drugs, already reshaping so many areas of care, also open unexpected doors in menopause?

Elsewhere, sexual and reproductive health has shown the power of sustained focus. Investment has prevented millions of unintended pregnancies and saved lives across Europe. There remains much to do, and the gains are fragile, with funding slipping back and widening the gender gap in healthcare.

Prevention, the birthplace of all healthcare, is also having a wobble. Vaccines have cut cervical cancer dramatically, but rising scepticism threatens to erode trust. The next breakthrough might not come from a lab, but from an everyday object: a sanitary product that doubles as an HPV screen.

Taken together, these stories are not about isolated conditions, but about a system finally learning to see differently. A system willing to look beyond symptoms, categories and convention. The future of women’s health belongs to those ready to step outside the old frameworks and build care that reflects real lives.

‘Aha,

All the things I could do,

If I had a little money’ - Money, Money, Money - ABBA (1976)

Forty years on and startups everywhere are humming the same tune. From angels to private equity, there’s never been more cash on the table. There’s also never been more competition trying to grab a slice.

So what makes you stand out? It’s about stepping outside the safe zone, breaking your own mould, and knowing what makes investors lean in.

In a world full of lookalike startups, maybe it’s time to take a leaf from ABBA - take a chance, and make them take a chance on you.

This is funding reborn. Maybe even funding ReBjorn? (Editor - No. Too far. Max 2 ABBA puns per theme. Pls fix).