Top Healthcare Technology and IT Conferences to Attend in 2026 and 2027
Published 7/30/2026
Author: Andrew Reed, Assoc. Director, The Health Management Academy
Where Health System Technology Leaders Should Spend Their Time
A conference decision is a budget decision. For a health system CIO or chief data and analytics officer, four days away from a live EHR migration or an AI governance build carries a real cost, and the largest event is not automatically the one that repays it. A 24,000-person exhibition and a closed-door executive forum answer different questions. One shows a leader the entire vendor landscape in a week. The other lets them ask a counterpart at a comparable system what an ambient documentation rollout actually cost, and get a straight answer.
This guide serves health system technology executives, including chief information officers, chief medical and nursing information officers, chief technology and digital officers, and chief data and analytics officers, along with the technology leaders who partner with them. It covers the healthcare technology conferences still ahead on the calendar, from the second half of 2026 into 2027, beginning with The Health Management Academy's CIO Forum and Advanced Analytics Collaborative before examining the major industry events and their limitations. Every entry carries its next scheduled edition. Details come from information published by each organizer, and where an edition is far enough out that the organizer has not yet confirmed dates, pricing, or an agenda, this guide says so rather than estimating.
The Best Healthcare Technology and IT Conferences of 2026 and 2027
The Health Management Academy CIO Forum
Dates and Location: October 5–7, 2026, in Washington, D.C. The 2027 edition is expected but the dates and location are not yet published. The CIO Forum is part of THMA's broader Industry Executive Convening.
Who It Is For: Health system chief information officers, seated one-to-one with the technology and services executives who serve them.
Why It Stands Out: The CIO Forum is built around a constraint most healthcare technology conferences do not impose: an enforced one-to-one ratio of health system leaders to industry leaders, in a closed-door room with no exhibit hall, no vendor pitches, and no media. Participating CIOs come from systems including Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, Mass General Brigham, Northwell Health, and UPMC, while the industry side draws chief executives and product leaders from organizations such as Microsoft, Philips, GE HealthCare, Accenture, and KPMG. The 2.5-day agenda addresses the questions defining the role now: repositioning IT from a cost center to a value creator, enterprise AI readiness and what real implementation requires, the CIO's shift toward strategic partnership, and how policy intersects with digital investment. Participation is application and membership-based rather than open registration, and THMA's Chief Revenue Cycle Officer Forum runs the same days in Washington.
Best Suited For: System CIOs who need candid peer benchmarking on AI, platform, and workforce decisions, and technology companies whose sales cycle depends on trust rather than lead volume.
The Health Management Academy Advanced Analytics Collaborative
Dates and Location: October 26–28, 2026, at The Ritz-Carlton in Washington, D.C. THMA hosts the Collaborative twice a year, and the 2027 sessions are expected but not yet published.
Who It Is For: Chief data and analytics officers and their senior team members, seated with the analytics and AI industry executives who serve them.
Why It Stands Out: Most events carrying the healthcare analytics label are vendor user groups or academic meetings. The Advanced Analytics Collaborative is neither. It convenes chief data and analytics officers from systems including Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, NewYork-Presbyterian, UCLA Health, AdventHealth, and Intermountain Health under the same strict one-to-one ratio, across 2.5 days of member-led sessions with no vendor halls. The agenda tracks the problems data leaders own in 2026: enterprise AI transformation and where it stalls, restructuring analytics teams and governance for AI, AI-driven revenue cycle optimization, and scaling data literacy and self-service analytics. The CMIO Forum and CNIO Forum run the same days in Washington, making that week the natural stop for systems sending more than one informatics leader.
Best Suited For: Chief data and analytics officers building AI governance and team structure, and analytics companies that need to understand how health systems actually buy and operationalize data products.
CHIME Fall Forum
Dates and Location: November 11–14, 2026, at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in Aurora, CO, outside Denver. This is the first Fall Forum held at that venue. CHIME has not yet announced the 2027 dates or location.
Who It Is For: Senior health system IT executives almost exclusively, including CIOs, CMIOs, CNIOs, CTOs, and chief digital officers.
Why It Stands Out: The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives convenes the highest concentration of health system CIOs at any single US event, and the Fall Forum is its flagship. Independent event-industry analysis puts attendance at roughly 1,100 with about 80 exhibiting sponsors, large enough to see the market and small enough that peer roundtables function as intended. Programming centers on AI, cybersecurity, interoperability, and the IT workforce, and the move to the Gaylord Rockies puts general sessions, roundtables, and CHIME's Foundation Firm meetings under one roof for the first time. CHIME does not publish registration rates publicly, so pricing requires a direct inquiry.
Best Suited For: CIOs and their direct reports who want peer density with a manageable vendor presence, and technology companies targeting IT executives with budget authority.
HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition
Dates and Location: The 2026 conference took place March 9–12 at the Venetian Convention and Expo Center in Las Vegas, NV, and is included here for planning reference. HIMSS27 runs April 5–8, 2027, at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL, with preconference programming on April 5 and the main conference April 6–8.
Who It Is For: The broadest health IT audience on this list, spanning health system technology executives, clinicians, informaticists, government and policy attendees, researchers, and the full vendor ecosystem.
Why It Stands Out: HIMSS is the default answer to where healthcare technology gathers, and it earns that on scale, promoting the conference on the strength of more than 24,000 attendees at its prior edition and more than 600 sessions covering AI, cybersecurity, digital health, and interoperability. The 2026 edition ran preconference forums on AI and cybersecurity, the Emerge innovation showcase, an Executive Summit, and specialty pavilions. The limitation is the same as the strength: at that size, HIMSS functions as a market survey rather than a peer conversation, and a CIO seeking a frank exchange with a dozen counterparts will not find it on that floor.
Best Suited For: Technology teams that need a complete view of the vendor landscape in one week, and health system leaders scoping a major platform or security purchase.
ViVE
Dates and Location: The 2026 edition took place February 22–25 at the Los Angeles Convention Center and is included here for planning reference. ViVE 2027 runs March 14–17, 2027, at Music City Center in Nashville, TN.
Who It Is For: Health system and payer digital and IT leaders, informaticists, health IT security professionals, government leaders, startups, investors, and solution providers.
Why It Stands Out: Co-created by CHIME and HLTH, ViVE occupies the space between an IT conference and an innovation summit, framing itself around the business of transformation. ViVE reports more than 8,000 attendees including more than 2,000 C-level executives, along with more than 8,000 scheduled meetings, which indicates what the event is engineered to produce. Trade coverage of the 2026 Los Angeles edition described a shift toward implementation reality, with attention on responsible AI and data foundations. Because HLTH owns both ViVE and HLTH USA and CHIME co-created ViVE, three of the largest events here route back to two organizations, worth accounting for when a team plans its year.
Best Suited For: Digital and IT leaders who need to see the startup and payer landscape alongside their provider peers, and companies building a pipeline across both provider and payer buyers.
HLTH USA
Dates and Location: November 15–18, 2026, at The Venetian Expo in Las Vegas, NV. HLTH returns to Las Vegas in 2027, with dates not yet posted to HLTH's own event calendar.
Who It Is For: Providers, payers, employers, government, health technology companies, investors, pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations, startup founders, and clinicians.
Why It Stands Out: HLTH is where healthcare technology meets capital. The event reports more than 12,250 attendees, more than 4,400 C-suite executives, more than 950 sponsors and exhibitors, and more than 8,500 scheduled meetings, and that last figure describes its purpose more precisely than the agenda does. HLTH is also the most transparent event here on cost, with early rates starting at $1,500 for clinicians, startups, and government or nonprofit attendees, $2,295 for provider, payer, and employer executives and investors, and $2,795 for solution providers, rising to $3,395 and $3,995 respectively at standard pricing. For a technology leader, the value lies in early visibility into the vendor and funding pipeline rather than in peer benchmarking, and HLTH falls the week directly after CHIME Fall Forum, forcing a choice for teams with one November travel budget.
Best Suited For: Leaders tracking where healthcare technology capital is moving, and companies raising, partnering, or launching.
Becker's Health IT, Digital Health and RCM Conference
Dates and Location: September 14–17, 2026, at the Hilton Chicago in Chicago, IL. The 12th annual conference follows on September 27 to October 1, 2027, moving across town to the Hyatt Regency Chicago.
Who It Is For: C-suite, vice president, and director-level leaders across health IT, digital health, AI, and revenue cycle management.
Why It Stands Out: Now in its eleventh year, this conference sits where a large share of 2026 health system AI spending is landing, between the IT organization and the revenue cycle. It draws more than 2,500 executive-level attendees and more than 500 speakers across four days, with health system leaders from Advocate Health, Mayo Clinic, UCHealth, UPMC, Ascension, and CommonSpirit Health. Sessions cover AI and automation in revenue cycle operations, EHR modernization, workforce retraining for the AI era, cybersecurity, and interoperability. Keynotes include Wayne Gretzky and Jimmy Johnson, which signals the register accurately: this is a large operator conference, and the substantive exchange tends to happen in hallways rather than by design. Becker's does not publish registration rates, so pricing requires contacting its events team.
Best Suited For: IT and revenue cycle leaders evaluating AI in operational workflows, and companies selling into the digital health and revenue cycle stack.
AMIA Annual Symposium
Dates and Location: November 7–11, 2026, at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, TX. The Symposium moves to San Diego, CA, in November 2027, with the exact dates and venue still to be confirmed.
Who It Is For: Biomedical and health informatics researchers and practitioners, clinical informaticists, CMIOs, and data scientists across medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, public health, research, and industry.
Why It Stands Out: The American Medical Informatics Association Annual Symposium is the scientific meeting of the informatics field and the only accredited research conference on this list. Its 2026 theme, "Harnessing Informatics to Accelerate Learning Health Systems," addresses how informatics helps a health system adapt continuously rather than in project cycles. For a CMIO or analytics leader, this is where the evidence behind clinical decision support, AI model performance, and interoperability standards is presented and challenged before it reaches a vendor's marketing material. AMIA offers CME supporting maintenance of certification, and registration is tiered by membership with early-bird pricing through September 8, 2026. The limitation is a matter of design: the Symposium is built for researchers and practicing informaticists, so it complements an executive forum rather than replacing one.
Best Suited For: CMIOs, clinical informatics leaders, and analytics teams that need peer-reviewed evidence rather than vendor claims.
Epic UGM
Dates and Location: August 17–20, 2026, at Epic's campus in Verona, WI. The 2027 meeting returns to the same campus August 16–19.
Who It Is For: The Epic community, including health system CIOs, CMIOs, CNIOs, application and analytics teams, physicians, nurses, and pharmacists working in Epic.
Why It Stands Out: For the substantial share of US health systems running Epic, the Users Group Meeting is the most consequential technology week of the year, and no roundup that omits it reflects how health system IT time is actually spent. UGM is where the platform roadmap, new release capabilities, and customer-led implementation sessions land, and where an organization's Epic strategy for the following year gets set. The access limitation is worth stating plainly: UGM is held on Epic's own campus, which closes to guests and visitors during the meeting, and every attendee must be registered and badged. Epic publishes neither attendance figures nor registration pricing, and the meeting serves its own community rather than the open market.
Best Suited For: Epic-based health systems planning their next release and AI roadmap, and Epic-connected partners with an established community presence.
Oracle Health and Life Sciences Summit
Dates and Location: September 22–24, 2026, at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort near Orlando, FL. Oracle has signalled an October 2027 return, with the dates and location still to be announced.
Who It Is For: Oracle Health customers and partners, alongside healthcare executives, innovators, and policy leaders, with a skew toward health systems on the Oracle Health platform and life sciences organizations.
Why It Stands Out: The Summit is the counterpart to Epic UGM on the other side of the US electronic health record market, and taking both into account gives a technology leader a view of where most health system EHR investment is heading. Oracle offers complimentary registration along with discounted room rates booked through its attendee portal, making this the lowest-cost event on the list by a wide margin and lowering the barrier for teams evaluating the platform rather than already running it. As with any platform event, the agenda follows the vendor's roadmap, so it answers what Oracle is building rather than what peers on other platforms are learning.
Best Suited For: Health systems on or evaluating Oracle Health, and life sciences organizations working across the Oracle stack.
What to Look for in a Healthcare Technology Conference
The Ratio of Vendors to Peers
Health IT gatherings are unusually vendor-dense, and the ratio determines what a leader can accomplish. An exhibition with tens of thousands of attendees offers a complete view of the market and little chance of an unguarded conversation about a difficult implementation. A forum seating equal numbers of health system and industry executives produces the opposite. Weigh the exhibiting sponsor count against the executive attendee count and decide which outcome the trip is meant to deliver. Both are legitimate, and few events serve them at once.
Whether the Agenda Makes Room for What Did Not Work
The information a technology executive most needs is rarely presented from a main stage. What an ambient documentation deployment cost after the second year, why a predictive model was retired, how a governance committee resolved a dispute between clinical and data leadership: none of this appears in a case study written for a recorded session with the vendor in the room. Look instead for the structural features that make candor possible, including closed-door sessions, enforced participant ratios, absence of media, and roundtables with no sponsor present. Those tell a leader more than the session titles do.
AI Programming That Addresses Governance and Cost, Not Only Capability
Nearly every event on the 2026 and 2027 calendar promises AI content, and the label covers a wide range. Some agendas demonstrate what models can do. Others take up the questions a health system must answer before deployment: who owns model governance, how performance is monitored after go-live, what the total cost runs across licensing, integration, and clinician time, and how an organization decides which use cases to fund. Read the AI sessions for governance, monitoring, procurement, and workforce content. An agenda heavy on capability and light on those four will not help a leader defend a budget line.
Access Rules That Determine Whether Attendance Is Possible
Healthcare technology has more restricted events than most sectors, and access rules belong in the evaluation before a conference enters a budget. Platform user meetings such as Epic UGM serve their own customer communities and close their campuses to outside visitors. Executive forums operate by application and membership. Some events publish full pricing while others require a direct inquiry. Confirm eligibility, application timing, and cost early, because the events with the most valuable rooms are often the ones that cannot be joined on a month's notice.
Whether the Same People Return the Following Year
Platform and vendor decisions run on multi-year horizons, and the peer relationships that inform them need a comparable timeline. A one-time introduction on an exhibit floor rarely produces a phone call eighteen months later when a contract comes up for renewal. Recurring forums that reconvene the same community build the familiarity that makes a candid answer possible, and the value compounds across editions. When weighing a recurring line in the budget, give weight to continuity rather than to headcount alone.
Building a Deliberate 2026 and 2027 Healthcare Technology Conference Strategy
An effective calendar treats these events as complementary tiers rather than as competing options. The large exhibitions, HIMSS and ViVE, provide a view of the vendor and innovation landscape that no small event can match. The operator conferences, Becker's and CHIME Fall Forum, convene the leaders running health system technology day to day. The platform meetings, Epic UGM and the Oracle Health and Life Sciences Summit, determine what a system's core systems will do next year. AMIA supplies the peer-reviewed evidence beneath all of it, and HLTH USA shows where capital is moving before it reaches the market.
Executive access fills the tier the large events are not built to serve. The Health Management Academy's CIO Forum and Advanced Analytics Collaborative, both part of its Industry Executive Convening, place technology and data executives in sustained, closed-door dialogue with the industry leaders who serve them, under a ratio and a set of rules that exhibit floors cannot reproduce. A deliberate calendar pairs at least one THMA forum with a selection of the major industry events, so a team leaves each year with both a full market view and the peer relationships that inform platform, AI, and governance decisions. The rest of 2026 compresses sharply, with the Advanced Analytics Collaborative in late October and AMIA, CHIME Fall Forum, and HLTH USA falling across nine days in November, so those choices are best made before the registration windows close. 2027 offers more room to plan around: ViVE in Nashville in March, HIMSS27 in Chicago in April, Epic UGM in Verona in August, Becker's in Chicago at the end of September, and AMIA in San Diego in November, with CHIME, HLTH, Oracle, and both THMA forums still to publish their dates. Teams that commit to the fall now and hold budget for the spring will enter 2027 with sharper positioning than a year of undirected attendance would produce. For the full slate of executive convenings, see THMA's healthcare conferences overview, and for the cross-sector view, The Top U.S. Healthcare Conferences to Attend in 2026.