HSD Canberra 2027 - Australia's Healthcare System inside the AI Upside Down

A full-day summit followed by the HSD Networking Reception: https://www.wildhealth.net Australia’s healthcare system in the AI Upside Down Wild Health Canberra Health Leadership Conference | Canberra | June 2027 FULL PROGRAM HERE. Wednesday June 9th 2027, Park Hyatt Canberra A one-day leaders summit, followed by HSD Networking Reception AI isn’t a project sitting off to one side of the health system. It touches almost everything: national policy, funding and payment models, regulation, infrastructure, the workforce, hospital operations, the GP practice billing system and the patient’s path through care. Yet most of the conversation is still about single tools being deployed at different points of the system. Scribes, chatbots, agentic pilots and point solutions dominate the discussion. Very few people are asking the bigger question: if we were fully on top of what AI can already do, and could implement it straight away, how would we run Australia’s healthcare system? And what would we have to change to get there? That is the question at the centre of Wild Health’s 2027 Canberra Health Leadership Conference. Into the Upside Down, and back again The day works in two ways. First, we cross into the AI Upside Down. It’s a mirror version of our system, where AI is understood and deployed as fast as it is developing. We’ll map how that system works for governments, health services, clinicians and patients, without the usual caveats about why it can’t happen. Then we come back and get practical. What stands between today’s system and that one? Which barriers are technical, which are about funding or regulation, and which are about structure and culture? What can be done in the next 12 to 24 months, and by whom? Practical takeaways workshopped in the last session of the day. What we’ll explore • A federated system working as one. Australia’s split responsibilities are hard enough without AI. How do the Commonwealth, states and territories coordinate on AI policy, procurement, safety and data, so the country gets the benefit once instead of nine times over? • Infrastructure and interoperability. Billions are being invested in data sharing, records modernisation and standards. What does AI change about those plans? Where does it make them more urgent, and where does it offer a faster route? • Workforce. Done properly, AI can give clinicians time back and take pressure off a stretched workforce. Done badly, it adds risk and workload. What capability does the workforce need, and who is responsible for building it? • Governance at the speed of the technology. Tools like AI scribes have spread through general practice and hospitals in months, not years. How do we build guardrails, assurance and ongoing oversight that keep pace without strangling innovation? • Running two tracks at once. Health departments are midway through major programs, such as NSW’s Single Digital Patient Record. How do they manage AI now, in parallel, without creating havoc in the work already under way? • A bigger structural question. Is AI the trigger to rethink how the system is organised? One provocation: regions, linked to local health districts and PHNs, that vertically integrate care across hospitals, general practice, mental health and aged care. This would be staged over time, with the Commonwealth staying in the loop as funder and national steward. Too big an idea with too many political barriers or an inevitable position based on how dysfunctional our current federated system has become? • Access and equity. AI could close gaps for rural, remote, First Nations and disadvantaged communities, or widen them. What decides which way it goes? • Hospitals to Primary Care. In the short term, how do hospitals use AI to connect with primary and community care and manage chronic disease across the boundaries? How would we not build the same thing many different times between the regions? Agentic AI as a fundamental underlying administration tool for both hospitals and general practice. How the day runs A single, fast-moving day in Canberra, built for people who make decisions: • short, provocative keynotes from Australian and international leaders • panels that put government, providers, clinicians and industry on the same stage • “armchair fights”: two experts, opposing views, one moderator • rapid showcases of teams already solving these problems • time to talk with the people who run the system • A workshopped final session to pull out audience take aways • Networking drinks to finish. Who should be there • federal, state and territory government leaders and policy makers • health service, hospital and LHD executives and boards • clinical, digital and data leaders • primary care, PHN, aged care and mental health leaders • regulators, funders, insurers and researchers • the technology companies building the tools. FULL PROGRAM HERE. Note on refunds: Unfortunatley we are not able to process refund requests due to change of mind less than four weeks out to the event. We can offer a credit note for future events instead.