Thanks to some high-profile IPOs, 2019 has been something of a breakout year for digital health. Sector luminaries will be flocking to Santa Clara, Calif., next month for HIMSS’ annual Health 2.0 Fall Conference to look back on the year and, more importantly, look ahead to the future.

The three-day conference kicks off Monday, September 16, with two all-day preconference events and two afternoon events.

The Provider Symposium will bring speakers from the provider world — like Sutter Health Chief of Digital Patient Experience Albert Chan and UCSF Director of Research Strategy and Associate Director of Precision Medicine India Hook-Barnard — to the stage to talk with startup partners about how they’re innovating.

And the Health 2.0 Venture Connect pitch contest will pit eight health tech finalists against each other to compete for two $12,000 prizes — and a chance to be featured right here on MobiHealthNews and on HIMSSTV.

The afternoon will feature another competition, the RWJF Pitch Competition, and a Startup Workshop where digital health entrepreneurs can learn from experts and each other.

Tuesday and Wednesday make up the main event, which will include panels and onstage interviews about the hottest topics in health tech.

"As this is the year when three digital health companies IPOed, I'm excited to see the [executive chairman] of Livongo, Glen Tullman, talk about establishing a new sector, while the founding CEO of athenahealth — last decade's hot 'digital health' IPO — the always entertaining Jonathan Bush, will tell me what he's up to next,” Health 2.0 co-host and co-founder Matthew Holt told MobiHealthNews.

Indu Subaiya, the event’s other co-host and co-founder, highlighted two panels she’s especially excited about.

“This year's Consumer Panel shows how far we've come,” Subaiya said. “From the coming together of digital therapeutics and genomics with 23andMe's integration Lark, to the elevation of women's health with platforms like Rory offering telehealth, coaching and tracking all in one, to hardware-software products like Lief Therapeutics that measure the elusive but central driver of health outcomes, stress — we're going to have to rename this panel, because it shows that consumer-driven approaches are providing clinical-grade solutions and defining what good healthcare looks like.”

And of course, no Health 2.0 would be complete without the Unacceptables panel that tackles some of the hardest problems in healthcare.

“The Unacceptables has blown my mind this year,” Subaiya said. “When I first created this panel three years ago I couldn't have envisioned that we'd be featuring provider programs for human trafficking, blockchain solutions for identity management for homeless populations, and platforms integrating maternal and child health records so we can attack the racial disparities in maternal mortality head on. You name the daunting gaps in healthcare and I can promise you, there are members of the Health 2.0 community around the world tackling them. Our job is to shine the light on their work so it sees wider adoption.”

The event will conclude with the annual Launch! event, where some of tomorrow's hottest digital health companies will be make their public debuts.

There are many, many other speakers and sessions coming next month at Health 2.0, and we’ll be previewing several of them across the HIMSS Media brands (check out Bill Siwicki’s interview with keynote speaker Christopher J. Ross for an early taste). But it’s not too late to register and be part of these important conversations about our industry.