From Vision to Reality: How Digital Health Became the Present

In this keynote, Roberto Ascione explores the evolution of a vision that, over three decades, has helped transform digital health as we know it today. Drawing on the ideas presented in his book “The Future of Health”, he unpacks how the belief that digital technology could make care more accessible, sustainable, and human became a roadmap for innovation. With AI now accelerating every dimension of healthcare, from clinical decision support to patient engagement, from drug discovery to digital therapeutics, the keynote offers a clear perspective on how this transformation has taken shape over time. He shares lessons on which visionary ideas endured, how course corrections proved necessary, and why the most human ambitions, such as empowering patients, restoring the doctor patient relationship, and democratizing access, have proven the most durable. This is not a keynote about what’s coming. It’s the story of what has already arrived and what it took to get here.