Trust in health technology and data exchange is at a crossroads.

For nearly two decades, the healthcare community has focused successfully on building the technical infrastructure needed to modernize care delivery and enable information to move where and when it’s needed. We’ve connected systems, expanded exchange, and unlocked new efficiencies at national scale. While meaningful opportunities remain, the challenge before us today is different, and arguably more complex.

Now we must answer a new question: how do we establish and scale trust in the infrastructure we’ve built, especially when it carries some of the most sensitive and personal data that exists?

This question sits at the heart of the 2026 DirectTrust Annual Conference, themed Trust at the Crossroads.

Why “Trust at the Crossroads”?

Our interpretation of a crossroads is layered, and intentionally so.

It reflects a moment in time where policy, technology, and real-world use are converging faster than ever in an increasingly connected health ecosystem. This conveys a crossroads in practice, where we must balance the demand for seamless information exchange with the responsibility to protect patient privacy and security, and where independent accreditation and verification of health technology play a critical role in scaling trust beyond individual relationships. 

It also illustrates a crossroads in technology, as artificial intelligence rapidly expands across healthcare, introducing extraordinary opportunities alongside new questions of risk, accountability, and assurance that require trusted, objective oversight.

Finally, it’s an intentional nod to this year’s conference location. We’re excited to gather in Kansas City, with the conference hosted at the Oracle Innovations Campus, and inspired by a place near and dear to my heart, the city’s own Crossroads neighborhood, known for creativity, connection, and bringing different paths together.

Scaling Trust in an Increasingly Connected World

At DirectTrust, trust isn’t a buzzword – it’s the foundation of everything we do. Our community exists to build trust in health technology through enabling secure, identity-verified communication especially for healthcare,  as well as independent assessment of health technology.

As healthcare becomes more interconnected, trust becomes more complicated, prompting questions like:

  • How do I know you are who you say you are?
  • How do I know the technology I’m being asked to rely on is trustworthy?
  • How do we scale assurance without creating friction that slows care?

These questions are not abstract. They frame the real  challenges our community navigates every day across identity, privacy, security, interoperability, and emerging technologies. This year’s conference is designed to meet them head-on, bringing together policy leaders, technologists, implementers, and strategists to explore what trust must look like next.

Everyone Is a Dog on the Internet: Identity at Scale

The famous New Yorker cartoon from Peter Steiner stating, “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” reminds us that online identity is not always what it seems. In healthcare, that reality carries serious consequences.

The industry is actively grappling with how to scale identity assurance, at both the organizational and individual levels, using a combination of technical standards and policy approaches. Each comes with benefits and tradeoffs. Yet one thing is crystal clear: nationwide, efficient, and trustworthy health data exchange depends on solving the identity problem.

As a network built on a trust framework, DirectTrust has championed identity since our founding. Identity-verified, secure exchange is core to who we are. At this year’s conference, we’ll explore what the next iteration of identity assurance looks like, what’s required to mature it, and how the community can work together to move from theory to practice.

Using What Works and Expanding What’s Possible

Direct Secure Messaging remains one of the most widely deployed, cost-effective on-ramps to nationwide interoperability, and its relevance continues to grow.

Use cases are expanding across referrals and care coordination, driven in part by mandates such as the VA’s community care requirements under the Elizabeth Dole Veterans Benefits Act. Direct is also a primary pathway for Admission, Discharge, and Transfer notifications and Electronic Case Reporting. Increasingly, organizations are discovering additional opportunities to use Direct to exchange information with health-adjacent partners, including social service and community-based organizations.

At a time when privacy concerns around large-scale exchange are intensifying, it’s important to remember that Direct is inherently privacy-preserving. As a push-based exchange, the sender verifies that the recipient is authorized to receive the information, reinforcing trust at the moment of disclosure.

The conference will explore how we can continue to optimize and grow Direct and the infrastructure that supports it, including resources like the Aggregated Directory, while ensuring it evolves alongside broader interoperability efforts.

Not Your Typical Health Tech Conference

Trust has always been central to the DirectTrust Annual Conference. This year, we’re doubling down.

Centering an entire event on trust—across identity, privacy, security, interoperability, and AI—is unusual, and that’s exactly the point. Combined with DirectTrust’s deep experience in identity and trust frameworks, the result is content and connections you won’t find at other conferences of our size.

Last year, attendees reported a 95% satisfaction rate, praising the conference for its highly engaged community, meaningful networking, and sessions that delivered both big-picture insight and immediately actionable takeaways.

Join Us at the Crossroads

We’re thrilled to host the 2026 DirectTrust Annual Conference at the Oracle Innovations Campus in Kansas City on October 20–21, 2026.

If you’re working to advance trustworthy health technology, grappling with the tensions between access and privacy, or navigating what comes next as AI reshapes healthcare, this is the conversation you won’t want to miss.

Super Early Bird registration is now open! We hope you’ll join us—right at the crossroads.