The Digital Health Leadership Forum 2026

Events
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This is where some of the Digital Health sector’s most important conversations will happen.

DH Leadership Forum 2026
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DHA/HiNZ member tickets $225+GST

In partnership with HiNZ | Limited to 200 attendees

This is where some of the sector’s most important conversations will happen.

Bringing together government and health system leaders, clinical innovators, iwi-led voices and industry founders, the day moves from policy and procurement through to AI, interoperability and the future of care in Aotearoa.

Expect honest conversation on the issues breaking care delivery. Expect to leave with clarity on where the system is heading and who is driving it.

Programme

dha.org.nz/forum/schedule

Registration

dha.org.nz/forum/register

DHA Parliamentary Dinner

This rather exclusive event is in the evening following the Digital Health Leadership Forum.

Details including costs

Tuesday 12 May | 5.30pm-9.30pm
The Banquet Hall, Parliament, Wellington
$3,500+GST per table

DHA Parliamentary Dinner 2026
DHA Parliamentary Dinner 20261920×960 315 KB

A DHA exclusive | Limited to 20 tables

When the Forum closes, the evening begins - and this is where access becomes something else entirely.

The Parliamentary Dinner is a DHA event held at Parliament, where industry leaders, MPs, and senior government officials share a table. Not a panel. Not a briefing. A dinner, with direct conversation.

Every table of eight is structured deliberately: one MP, one government official, and one industry leader sit alongside the five seats you bring. Twenty tables. A fixed number. Once they are gone, they are gone.

This kind of access does not happen often. We would not wait.

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I have a feeling it would have been great to go along - but the getting to / from Wellington + the conference cost - and there’s no way that I have budget to get a seat at a table for dinner.

This unfortunately again - is going to exclude the little guys…

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Hi Matt - genuinely appreciate the feedback, and I understand this event wont be affordable for all. We are always working hard to make sure everyone is included at HiNZ. We are now putting on 4 regional events a year (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin) as well as Digital Health Week which includes the conference and workshops. We are committed to providing these all at materially lower prices than last year to enable people from across New Zealand to attend. We’ve also got monthly free webinars for those who find it difficult to attend these events, which now have over 500 registrations per webinar with great feedback received on these to date. We are very proud to partner with DHA in the Leadership forum and can promise you the pricing for attendees doesnt even cover the cost of running this day, hence us valuing the role sponsors play in supporting these events. The evening Parliamentary event is a DHA event only so you might want to feed back to them about the pricing for that. At HiNZ we put 100% of our events proceeds in to running our events and the many free things we offer to the wider digital health community, such as our free webinars, newsletters, and enabling this online community. We really value the support we get through people attending our events and being our members, and always aim to offer the highest quality content in everything we do, so people get great value for their financial and time investment. Hope this helps to explain the pricing and also our commitment to take on board feedback like this.

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I thought that this was pretty reasonable for a full day in person event (catered). And @alex and the rest of the HiNZ team are doing all they can to keep costs reasonable.

These things aren’t cheap (or easy) to run, and much like online life when you don’t pay for a product, you are the product.

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I understand the costs involved in a conference of any type - but the conference runs from 9-3:30 - with an hour break for lunch/morning tea. I accept that the team is doing their best - and NOTHING is cheap, but in the world of technology we’re living in - we surely should be able to make something more available. I’m not trying to have a go at anyone or the fact it’s happening - it’s great - it’s just the issues that unless you already have money - you can’t be in the room to discuss how to help and potentially get some more business to get some more money to be able to go to events to find out what’s going on …. (circular argument)

So that’s 5.5 hours of information time - for anyone from out of being local and wanting to be involved it makes it very difficult financially - that’s a school day, not a work day. I wish I had answers as to how to do this sort of thing on a more accessible format, but I don’t - yet…

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Well, that is one reason that we have the eHealth Forum - an alternative and super accessible way to share the same sort of content for those who cannot manage to or afford to do so ‘conventionally’.

The ‘cost’ of the eHealth Forum is that it requires engagement (i.e. a time investment) from both those sharing and those whom they are sharing with. Also, it very much has to complement the in person events (and not cannabilise them).

The challenge is getting people to see the value and embrace it as a concept (both those who go to events and those who cannot).

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I think its good to have these discussions - if we only listen to those who feel included or able to access things, then we arent doing our jobs here at HiNZ. The reality is that live video costs a bunch and technically is a lot harder to do in terms of people feeling included - Ive looked at this option a lot. Our videos werent being watched so we have decided not to continue videoing. So right now the options we have are - 2 day event - submitted speaking slots, big community, everyone gets together. One day events - we are doing these mainly as sharing knowledge as you are correct @MattG , the best way to do these is to give information with the number of attendees needed to break even. Our March event feedback was pretty overwhelming that the wider health and disability sector want this (research since 2023 says that 2/3 of clinicians are passive at best, negative at worst about digital in the workplace - I can provide references for that!). Webinars - monthly - lots of engagement. Podcasts - regular - great engagement. Newsletters (ehealth news and HiNZ connect) - good open rate. And the forum. Which we want to invest more time and energy in and hope to once we do a refresh of our systems (in process) and have the forum more connected to other HiNZ offerings. What keeps a platform lively is the engagement of the users, not the owners, so the more chat we have on here, and the more that the current users post, discuss, and encourage others to do the same, the more this community can grow and be a place of real discussion and real action. I’m always really open to any other suggestions though so lets keep the crunchy conversations happening and encourage a bit of “all vibes accepted” here :slight_smile: - with my plea that alternatives options are explored (“if not that, then what?”) as that’s what helps us move conversation to action

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An article about this in eHealth News:

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