Australia’s digital health revolution: inside the growth of the Digital Health Festival

Australia’s digital-health movement is growing up, and so is the festival that celebrates it.

Following its acquisition by international events group Terrapinn, the Digital Health Festival (DHF) is preparing to stage its most ambitious event yet this week. With more than 8,000 delegates, hundreds of speakers and a global line-up of innovators, the festival has become a bellwether for where Australian healthcare is heading next.

But behind the festival’s meteoric rise is a story of curiosity, timing and one very well-placed DM.

From a DM to the main stage

Two years ago, Terry Cornick was running a healthcare recruitment business when he stumbled across the Digital Health Festival on LinkedIn.

“I DMed the founder and he sent me a complimentary ticket,” he recalls. “I went and loved it.”

That message turned out to be life-changing. Within weeks Cornick joined the festival team, and when Terrapinn acquired the event in 2024, he stayed on to help lead the transition. His mix of commercial instinct and industry insight made him the ideal bridge between DHF’s start-up spirit and Terrapinn’s global capability.

“When I joined it was very start-up, shiny on the outside, small team juggling everything behind the scenes,” he says. “Now, with Terrapinn, we’ve got dedicated operations, marketing and production teams. That’s allowed us to focus on building relationships, growing internationally and creating a better experience for everyone.”

Under Terrapinn, DHF now has the infrastructure to match its ambition. The acquisition opened access to global networks, larger stages and deeper sponsorship pools, elevating what began as a grassroots industry gathering into a serious business platform for digital health across the Asia–Pacific.

“We thought it was a big event, and it is in Australian terms, but there are 770,000 healthcare practitioners here and 2.2 million people employed in healthcare and social services,” Cornick explains. “Our universe was quite myopic before. Now we’re seeing much more international interest, and attendance can definitely go north of 8,000.”

A new kind of health-tech marketplace

Walking the floor at DHF feels more like stepping into an expo hall in Singapore or Las Vegas than a typical Australian healthcare conference.

Start-ups pitch next to global technology vendors. Clinicians exchange ideas with policymakers and venture capitalists. Government agencies scout innovation while investors hunt for the next wearable or workflow solution ready to scale.

“It’s not an academic event,” Cornick laughs. “There are no tea breaks. It’s two days of relentless networking across 11 stages.”

That intensity has become DHF’s signature. Conversations happen in queues, at coffee stands and between sessions, often leading to real deals.

“Start-ups have told us they got their first grants at our event,” he says. “Big companies say the deals they made there paid for the next decade. It’s practical, it’s fun, but it’s also a place where real business happens.”

Alongside the Startup Showdown, Founders’ Breakfast and the After Dark Party, Terrapinn’s event pedigree is refining the experience with stronger staging, bigger international keynotes and more data-driven matchmaking between exhibitors and delegates.

The pulse of a changing industry

The festival’s expansion reflects more than growth in ticket numbers. It captures a shift in mindset across the sector.

“Two years ago, digital health was something people saw as optional,” Cornick says. “Now it is health. We’ll have to drop the word ‘digital’ soon.”

He notes that a decade of government investment, from My Health Record to interoperability frameworks, has built public expectation that the system must finally deliver seamless care.

“People expect everything to be linked,” he says. “Their GP, specialists, medications, fitness data, hospital visits, Medicare. We’re tired of repeating ourselves to every provider and wondering why all this information doesn’t join up.”

That growing impatience, coupled with tighter regulation and funding incentives, is pulling clinicians further into the digital-health fold.

“Two years ago they thought DHF was a nice extra. Now they tell us they have to come, to learn, to connect, to keep up.”

The big themes shaping 2026

Artificial intelligence will again dominate DHF’s agenda, not as novelty but as infrastructure.

“When I started, AI had one stage, now it’s everywhere,” Cornick says. “It features in 70 per cent of the talks. We don’t lead with it anymore because it’s just how healthcare operates.”

Cybersecurity, data privacy and interoperability will feature strongly, alongside a theme Cornick is particularly passionate about: the consumer voice.

“For years, having a ‘consumer’ meant adding one person to a panel. Now we’ll have entire sessions led by them,” he says. “They’re no longer a side note, they’re central to where digital health is going.”

The expanded program will include a dedicated consumer stream, signalling that patient experience and empowerment are now considered core components of health innovation, not peripheral issues.

The human factor behind the hype

Beyond the statistics and sponsors, Cornick believes DHF’s success lies in its culture.

He and his lean team have built a festival that feels both energetic and inclusive, an event where a first-time founder can bump into a hospital CEO and walk away with an opportunity. That sense of community, he says, is what makes the festival matter.

“Every year we see the boundaries between healthcare and technology dissolve a little more,” he says. “The conversations happening here will shape what care looks like for all of us in the next decade.”

Australia’s digital future on show

With the Digital Health Festival 2026 on this week (20–21) May at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre, Terrapinn’s backing and Cornick’s drive are positioning DHF as a truly global destination for healthcare innovation.

As the health-tech world converges on Melbourne this week, one thing seems certain: the Digital Health Festival has outgrown its start-up roots, and so has Australia’s digital-health conversation.

Find full event details and ticket information here. 

Veri Health is proud to be a Gold Sponsor of Digital Health Festival 2026.