On the agenda: The future of Nordic healthcare

As the largest Nordic event for digital health, healthtech, person-centered care, and life science, Vitalis brings together the full ecosystem – from policymakers and innovators to researchers and healthcare professionals. More than 6,500 participants, 700 speakers, and 200 exhibitors are expected at the event which will showcase a program spanning the most pressing topics in healthcare digitalization. Besides the extensive program and the large exhibition area, attendees will have plenty of opportunities to create new connections through matchmaking sessions, networking gatherings, a dinner party, and much more.

Ann Lindberg, Director General of the Swedish Medical Products Agency, and Boubou Hallberg, CEO of Sahlgrenska University Hospital, will both participate in Vitalis 2026.

Political debates and cooperation for the future

The Swedish Minister for Social Affairs and Public Health, Jakob Forssmed, and the Chair of SKR (Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions), Anders Henriksson will hold keynote speeches during the official inauguration on May 5 at 9am.

These will be followed by a political debate between the healthcare policy spokespersons from all eight parliamentary parties.

The agenda also contains the “Nordic cooperation for life sciences of the future” track, including a session on collaboration between Nordic university hospitals. Other highly relevant sessions for the life science industry include “Precision Prevention – Nordic & European Leadership in Personalized & Preventive Medicine” and “Advancing Healthcare through AI from the Swedish and Canadian Perspectives”.

Björn Eriksson, Director General of the National Board of Health and Welfare (Photo: Socialstyrelsen), and Søren Brunak, Professor of Disease Systems Biology at the University of Copenhagen, are among a long list of interesting speakers at Vitalis 2026.


Hot topic: Clinical trials

A new addition to this year’s agenda is a track on the hot topic of clinical trials, including digital solutions and how Sweden can regain a leading position in clinical research.

“During the programme session “How we increase Sweden’s attractiveness for clinical trials”, we will present the Swetrial partnership and our plans to position Sweden as a leading country in clinical research. I hope the new track will result in valuable meetings and collaborative initiatives that, over time, elevate our clinical trials to world-class level,” states Maria Englund, Acting Head of Secretariat, Swetrial.

“Our aim is to provide insight into how the new Swetrial partnership works, what it enables, and how the work will be organized. We also want to highlight the opportunities that exist in Sweden, given our capacity for innovation and our leading position in areas such as AI, and how these can be leveraged for clinical trials. We also welcome those working with digital infrastructure and solutions. We want to discuss how digital tools can help us take the next step, and for that we need input from people working with AI, technology, and digitalization,” states Frida Lundmark, Head of Research and Development at the industry association Lif.

Utilizing the potential of health data

This year’s Vitalis offers another unmissable track focused on health data, which will raise questions and feature debates such as “can we use the same data for dual purposes” and “is it possible to create data once and use it multiple times – or is this an impossible equation?”. This track explores whether and how health data can be created and used both for primary use in healthcare and for secondary use in research, statistics, and quality improvement. Through concrete examples, the track will highlight work underway to enable a coherent data flow that uses the same information to serve multiple purposes. The focus of the track is on showing both the opportunities and challenges of specifying, structuring, creating, and reusing health data in practice.

Vitalis 2025. Photo: Natalie Greppi

Trustworthy AI

Participants who are interested in AI and the use of AI in life sciences and healthcare, should not miss the “Trustworthy data for trustworthy AI” track. Trustworthy AI in healthcare is decided long before any AI model is trained. It is decided in the everyday realities of hospitals and research environments: what data is captured, what is excluded, how it is transformed, who can trace it, and who is accountable when it changes. This track brings together leading clinical institutions and international initiatives to focus on the operational foundations of trust. Rather than revisiting high-level AI strategies or abstract policy debates, the sessions examine where trust breaks in real deployments, i.e., provenance gaps in clinical data, opaque pipeline steps, fragile documentation practices, and governance models that do not scale beyond pilots.

With perspectives from Nordic university hospitals such as Karolinska and Sahlgrenska, global clinical and research leaders including Harvard and Mayo Clinic and cross-border programmes linking Luxembourg and Japan, the block connects board-level accountability to practical execution. The goal is to equip senior healthcare leaders, digital health leaders and programme owners with a clearer playbook for making data trustworthy enough to support AI that clinicians can rely on and organisations can responsibly operate.

Innovation Area at Vitalis 2025. Photo: Natalie Greppi