Bitkom's one-day digital health conference at KOSMOS Berlin on 24 November 2026, with six themes from health policy to AI and a speaker line-up led by regulators, payers and hospital executives.
The Digital Health Conference, hashtag #dhc26, is an annual one-day conference in Berlin on the digital transformation of the German health system. The organiser calls it a flagship event for decision-makers from all areas of health care. The 2026 motto is "Von der Strategie zur Umsetzung" (from strategy to implementation). It is run by Bitkom, the German digital industry association, and its service company. The official site and programme texts are in German.
24 November 2026. KOSMOS Berlin, Karl-Marx-Allee 131A, 10243 Berlin, Germany. Doors open at 09:00, the conference programme ends at 18:00, and a get-together follows until 20:00.
Bitkom. The project is run by Bitkom Servicegesellschaft mbH (project lead Robin Teufel), with programme leads Dr. Verena Benz (Pharma digital) and Dr. Ariane Schenk (E-Health) of Bitkom e.V., and communications lead Alla Fushtei. Bitkom describes itself as the association of the German digital economy.
1,000 participants, 100 speakers and 30 sessions: organiser figures shown on the home page without an edition label, so it is unclear whether they are a 2026 target or a 2025 result. The organiser addresses decision-makers from all areas of health care. The 2026 speaker roster points to federal agencies and ministries, statutory health insurers and physician bodies, hospital groups, health IT vendors, startups, law firms and consultancies, and members of parliament. No attendee breakdown is published. A third-party listing for the 2025 edition (25 November 2025, also at KOSMOS) gave over 800 participants and over 80 speakers (unverifiable information).
Status: published roster on the organiser's speaker page, read 16 October 2026, 55 names against the 100 speakers the organiser claims, so the roster is partial. Roles are translated from the German page.
The organiser's 2026 themes are Health and Politics 2026, Digital First in care, Resilience in health care, Big Data, AI and Future Health, and Time to Care. The 2026 Digital Health Startup Pitch runs on the Get Started stage. The bigger change is ahead: a Bitkom news item of 18 May 2026 says that from 2027 the Digital Health Conference becomes the content core of Smart Health Europe, held by Messe Berlin on 26 to 28 October 2027 on the Berlin exhibition grounds, so this stand-alone one-day format at KOSMOS is announced for 2026 only. What changed against 2025 in the programme is Not publicly disclosed: the organiser's 2025 review page returned an access error.
Six themes, as described by the organiser. No hour-by-hour agenda was published on 16 October 2026.
The organiser states 30 sessions across the day. Named formats are the Startup Pitch on the Get Started stage and a get-together after the programme. The Bitkom Events App offers a personalised agenda, a digital floor plan and AI-supported networking suggestions. Whether the day runs parallel stages, workshops or keynotes is Not publicly disclosed.
No other side events were found.
Prices in the organiser's booking widget on 16 October 2026, in euros, with no VAT statement shown. Standard DHC Ticket: 500 EUR. Student Ticket, limited to students: 50 EUR. Startup Ticket, limited to startups: 150 EUR. The 350 EUR early-bird rate listed in earlier records is no longer offered. Press accreditation is arranged separately. A promotion code field is available at checkout.
No open call for speakers is published. The programme is set by Bitkom's programme leads, Dr. Verena Benz and Dr. Ariane Schenk, whom the contact page names. The one open route is the Startup Pitch: applications close on 20 October 2026 at 18:00, with a pitch deck as PDF of up to 10 MB. The winning team gets a stage slot at the Digital Health Conference 2027 and a one-year Get Started membership of Bitkom.
Use the partnership enquiry form on the official site. Partner levels shown are Premium partner, Partner, Media partner and Content partner. No price list or exhibition floor is published, so what a partner package includes is Not publicly disclosed. Partners can also propose solutions for the programme, according to the organiser.
Published roster of 2026 partners, read 16 October 2026. The page shows logos with links, so names are taken from the link addresses.
The organiser publishes no breakdown. The partner and speaker lists show health IT and platform vendors (CGM, Materna, Doctolib, Avelios, MEDIVISE, Schwarz Digits), security and identity firms (secunet, Bundesdruckerei, AUTHADA, enclaive), law firms (Greenberg Traurig, Dentons), pharma and pharmacy companies (Boehringer Ingelheim, DocMorris, Redcare Pharmacy), and public payers, regulators and hospital groups on stage. Which type is the majority is Not publicly disclosed.
The tickets page asks journalists to write to Alla Fushtei, communications lead at Bitkom Servicegesellschaft: a.fushtei@bitkom-service.de. No deadline, eligibility rules or online form are published.
None found in the sourced material for the 2026 edition. The organiser's own news items on its site concern health policy, not the event itself, and its 2025 review page returned an access error. Nine media partners are listed (see the sponsors entry).
Nothing independent to classify. Any coverage in the nine named media partners would be placed coverage by definition, and the media partner agreement terms were not found. The attendance, speaker and session figures on the home page come from the organiser and carry no edition label.
Readers who need English-language material: the official site and programme texts are German only and the session language is not stated. Buyers who want an exhibition floor: none is described. Companies planning for 2027: the conference is announced to move into Smart Health Europe on 26 to 28 October 2027, so a stand-alone 2027 event at KOSMOS is not planned. Startups missing the pitch deadline of 20 October 2026.
It is Bitkom's own autumn event in Berlin. The organiser's news item says the 2027 edition joins Smart Health Europe, a Messe Berlin event on 26 to 28 October 2027 for which Bitkom is national association partner, described as the European counterpart of Smart Health Asia, which launches on 1 and 2 July 2026 in Singapore. Comparisons with other health events were not sourced here.
No edition outside Berlin was found. The 2025 edition took place on 25 November 2025 at KOSMOS Berlin according to third-party listings (unverifiable information), and the 2026 edition is again at KOSMOS. From 2027 the conference is announced as part of Smart Health Europe at the Berlin exhibition grounds.
The official site, programme themes, speaker roles and press instructions are published in German. The session language is Not publicly disclosed.
Not publicly disclosed. No livestream, hybrid ticket or replay is mentioned on the official pages read on 16 October 2026.
The tickets page states that cancellation of booked tickets is excluded. Transfer to another person and event cancellation terms are in the Bitkom general terms for conferences, a PDF that could not be read here, so they are Not publicly disclosed in the sources read.
Not publicly disclosed. No accessibility statement appears on the arrival or tickets pages. The arrival page says there is no reserved parking at the venue and recommends public transport.
KOSMOS is at Karl-Marx-Allee 131A, 10243 Berlin. The organiser names the U-Bahn stop Frankfurter Tor (U5) and direct connections from Berlin Hauptbahnhof and from Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER). There is no reserved parking, and Deutsche Bahn special conditions apply to the journey. Recommended hotels: NH Berlin Alexanderplatz, SLY Berlin and New Berlin.
Because the speaker page puts the regulators and payers who decide digital care in one room: the BfArM president, the GKV-Spitzenverband, the Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung, the Bundesärztekammer, the Deutscher Pflegerat, gematik and the Federal Ministry of Health, next to three members of the Bundestag. Add the 2026 themes on the electronic patient record and the European Health Data Space and the day reads as a venue for implementation questions, more than for product demonstrations.
Because the organiser's 18 May 2026 news item says the conference becomes the content core of a larger Messe Berlin event from 2027. For a reader who values a compact, one-day, KOSMOS-sized format with a Bitkom programme, 24 November 2026 is the last edition announced in that form.
Because 1,000 participants, 100 speakers and 30 sessions appear on the home page without an edition label, the speaker page lists 55 names, and the only outside figure for 2025 (over 800 participants, over 80 speakers) comes from an unverified listing. The ticket price also changed from the 350 EUR early-bird in earlier records to 500 EUR. Treat figures as organiser statements and reconfirm prices in the booking widget before you buy.
Official site: https://health-conference.de/. Tickets: https://health-conference.de/tickets. Arrival: https://health-conference.de/anreise. Speakers: https://health-conference.de/speaker-2026. Startup Pitch: https://www.bitkom.org/Themen/Startups-Scaleups/Digital-Health-Startup-Pitch-2026. The press contact is on the tickets page. The site does not list a general event email address; the contact page lists named Bitkom project staff.