HLTH Conference Promises Festival Vibe On One Big Stage; Health Equity, Women’s Health, Digital Health

With the kick-off of the mega HLTH conference being less than 72 hours away, Medtech Insight touched base with HLTH head of content, Jody Tropeano, to see what visitors can expect to see and hear at this year’s health tech extravaganza, held from 13-16 November at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.

Now that the meeting is in its fifth year, “it’s time to take a risk,” Tropeano said. For the first time ever, the conference will have an open floor plan format “inspired by art and music festival designs where attendees see and hear all the action on every stage walking by.”

There will be eight stages featuring live discussions, presentations, company announcements and key sessions covering a wide variety of topics including consumerism, digital health investment trends, robotics, virtual reality, digital therapeutics, well-being and evolving care delivery models.

HLTH

New this year is “WELL” by HTHL, which focuses on the intersection of health and wellness and how consumer-driven trends are impacting the entire health ecosystem, she said.

“'How can consumer health organizations either partner with or compete against incumbents?’ We’ll dive into sleep health, the pros and cons of the D2C model, longevity, psychedelic medicines, the mind/body connection, to name a few,” she said. The “Garden Stage” will host most of these sessions.

The goal of the new format is to increase session attendance on the content side with the exhibition side while also creating plenty of space to network.

“We are bringing together those attendees that typically stick inside the exhibit hall only and those that only attend sessions,” Tropeano said. “They are all networking in the same big open show floor and hopefully that leads to more meaningful connections.”

Health equity and access to care will likely be a theme in every session this year, she said. Women’s health has also taken center stage this year along with consumer-led health and wellness. The economic climate will be a part of many investment-focused sessions, she added.

This year’s event will feature presentations from and sessions with major health care and government executives including: Becton Dickinson AB CEO Tom Polen; US Department of Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra; Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian;Biogen, Inc.’s president Alisha Alaimo; 23andMe, Inc. CEO Anne Wojcicki CEO; Exact Sciences Corp.  chief science officer Jorge Garces; and Teladoc Health, Inc. CEO Jason Gorevic.

Tropeano prides herself in having such a great caliber of speakers this year and the uniqueness of topics, such as “Sexual Healing” on sexual health and wellness, “Private Equity: Villain or Unsung Hero” on private health equity’s role in health and “Kombucha on Tap is Not Enough” about attracting and retaining Gen Z and Millennials in the workplace.

She expects the event will attract more than 9,500 attendees and 850-plus sponsors. While the show has been steadily growing since 2018, Tropeano said that the goal was never to be a 50,000-person show.

“Quantity is not the goal. Instead, we measure our success year-over-year on specifically who is in our audience. We look at the percentage of CEOs and founders, the number of one-to-one hosted-buyer and funding-founder meetings that are scheduled, and, overall, if we are getting the right decision makers to attend.”