With more than 8,000 people in attendance, this year’s Digital Health Festival (DHF25) was the biggest yet—and it showed. The scale had both upsides and challenges: a buzzing floor, endless networking opportunities, but also overlapping sessions, clickbait titles, and the occasional talk that turned out to be more pitch than provocation.
This post is for those who couldn’t attend—and for those who did but want a clear way to share the key takeaways with their teams, execs or boards. It reflects not just the event itself, but how DHF seems to be evolving year to year.
Last year at DHF24, my focus was on innovation signals from a startup-heavy ecosystem. I wrote about the optimism around prevention, the rise in corporate and government investment, and the growing alignment between wellness trends and care delivery. That energy was still present in 2025, but this year’s event felt a little more serious—less about the next big pitch, and more about how to make the system work.
Longevity Is Getting Physical
At DHF24, longevity was still abstract. In 2025, it got real.
“We’ve helped people recover from heart disease and strokes, but we know so little about the brain and cognitive decline.” – Dr George Margelis, Independent Chair at Aged Care Industry Information Technology Council
Healthspan—the years we live in good health, with strength, independence and purpose—was a recurring theme. And it wasn’t just theory.
Health check machines, diagnostics, genomics kits and body composition scanners were everywhere on the expo floor. Startups and vendors were showing not just how we could track wellbeing, but how we might optimise it. In contrast to 2024, where longevity mostly lived in the context of healthy ageing and wellness, this year saw a tangible shift into screening, measurement, and early intervention.
The shift: From talking about living longer, to showing how we might live better.
Mental Health Is Pushing the System to Breaking Point
Mental health has been a key thread across every DHF, but in 2025, the system-wide pressure felt more visible. At DHF24, mental health was mostly about stigma reduction and service innovation. In 2025, the conversation sharpened: navigation and economic strain.
“Over 20% of people are still searching for help five years after symptoms begin.” Rachel Green, CEO @ SANE Australia
The real problem isn’t diagnosis. It’s access. Startups like Support Sorted are helping people get matched to the right support faster, but these solutions are still in early stages.
And here’s the critical new angle in 2025: the impact on private health insurance. Mental health claims are rising, especially among younger members. The Risk Equalisation system—designed to spread cost from older to younger cohorts—is being stressed by a shift where younger people are now claiming heavily, not just funding. For insurers, these members now represent a dual cost: not only do they increase claims directly, but they also reduce the fund’s net position in the risk equalisation pool—where insurers contribute more or receive less based on their membership and claims profile. That puts added pressure on funds already struggling to attract and retain younger members.
And here’s the real kicker: rather than realising their purpose of helping members live healthier and happier lives, the current system may actually incentivise insurers to scale back mental health services, introduce tighter limits, or reduce coverage in subtle ways. The aim? To disincentivise high-cost younger members from joining in the first place. That’s not just a strategic risk—it’s a reputational and ethical one.
This wasn’t a major topic on stage, but it got me think that it’s a big problem for the future of the private healthcare system.
Prevention Is Still a Slogan Without a System
In 2024, I was encouraged by how many startups were leaning into prevention. In 2025, that enthusiasm is still there—but the cracks in commercialisation are more obvious.
“The Australian government spends 97% on recovery and 3% on prevention.” – Catherine de Fontenay, Commissioner @ Productivity Commission referencing the general insurance industry. She highlighted that the figure might be similar for healthcare.
There was no shortage of prevention tools on display: gut health diagnostics, blood testing platforms, wearables, genomics, remote care. But the question no one could answer was: who pays?
Several vendors showed promise, but most still rely on out-of-pocket models or wellness budgets. Few have cracked how to plug into mainstream funding flows. Payback for government investment in prevention sits outside the political cycle, and the same can be said for private health insurers, where ROI through impact on reduced claims is unlikely in same year. However, there was a sense that insurers may be the ones to lead the way on prevention investment…
“PHIs invest more in prevention than government—because their actuaries tell them to.” – Ben Harris, Director Policy and Research at Private Healthcare Australia
The shift from 2024? Last year, prevention was about possibility. This year, it’s about viability.
One More Observation: Telehealth Is Saturated
If there was one overrepresented category at DHF25, it was telehealth. Every niche had its own version—chronic care, women’s health, aged care, mental health.
But dig deeper, and the platforms were strikingly similar: video consults, booking tools, compliance portals. While there was plenty of passion, there was little true differentiation. To me it feels like the telehealth gold rush is over. The next phase isn’t more platforms—it’s better integration, interoperability, and outcomes data. I wouldn’t be surprised to see industry consolidation and more than a handful of businesses folding over the coming year.
Highlights
💉 Favourite Startup: Bloody Good Tests
When I had my last annual blood test, my GP told me everything was “within range”—except for vitamin D, which flagged further testing. What he didn’t mention? My vitamin B12 had dropped 47% in a single year. Still “within range,” technically—but trending in the wrong direction. Without my own curiosity, that drop would have gone unnoticed for another year, likely leading to symptoms without a clear cause.
After spotting the trend, I uploaded my past three blood results into ChatGPT, standardised the markers, and visualised the changes. With a little prompt tuning, I had a clearer view of my current health—and some actionable insights around supplements and habits.
Bloody Good Tests takes that idea and builds a product around it. They offer blood testing via their own platform (through their network of pathology partners), then visualise your results, highlight watchpoints and trends, and suggest behaviour changes in a user-friendly interface. It gives health-curious people agency over their own wellbeing.
The catch? Cost. Because your GP technically owns your blood results, this sits outside the standard consultation journey—and can cost several hundred dollars. But if they can solve for affordability, and eventually integrate wearable data or other health signals, this could become something really powerful. One to watch—and the founders were sharp.
🎤 Favourite Presentation: “Do You Want to Live Forever?” by Amelia Phillips (Vitality360)
Of all the longevity sessions, this one stood out. Amelia shared insights not just as a founder and wellness leader, but as someone who clearly walks the talk. Her reflections on data-driven behaviour change landed hard—especially when she spoke about tracking her own sleep and making the decision to give up alcohol. It was personal, practical, and one of the most grounded longevity discussions at the event.
🧠 Favourite Panel: Building Better Founders in Health
Speakers: Makenzie Thomas, Dr Sam Donegan, Zoe Milgrom, Grace Bird
As a small business owner, I found myself nodding the whole way through. This panel didn’t sugar-coat the founder journey—it laid it bare. Grit, risk, resourcefulness, resilience. I suspect more than a few early-stage founders walked away questioning whether they truly want to do this—because the message was clear: building a health startup is incredibly hard. But for those who stay in the fight, the impact can be huge.
🤖 Favourite AI Application: Bupa’s AI Allan
Among the endless stream of GPT-powered demos rebranded as startups, AI Allan stood out. Presented by my friend and former colleague Sam Lorimer, it’s a real-world application of AI solving a real problem: knowledge management.
Bupa built AI Allan to reduce agent call times and improve member experience. It delivered both—while also lifting employee and member NPS scores. And the opportunity ahead is big: this tech could easily extend to chatbot interfaces or help simplify other complex datasets across the organisation. Proof that with the right framing and focus, AI can drive actual results.
Final Thought
Unlike 2024, I didn’t leave this year’s event feeling especially buoyant. If anything, I left more concerned.
There was still value—particularly in the conversations between sessions, the coffees with clients and peers, and the unplanned interactions across the floor. But the presentations felt more salesy, the startup energy less impressive, and the big-picture questions largely unanswered.
The problems we face in health are growing, not shrinking. And DHF25 made it clear that while interest is high and passion is real, scalable solutions remain elusive.
DHF continues to be a useful pulse check on where health innovation is heading. But unless we shift more of the energy from demo mode to delivery mode, we risk spending another year admiring the same problems in 2026.