Healthcare architects, designers, engineers and facility leaders will share the same venue this October as the Healthcare Design Conference + Expo co-locates with the International Federation of Healthcare Engineering World Congress for the first time.
The 2026 Healthcare Design Conference + Expo will take place from October 17–20 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, with the IFHE 29th World Congress running alongside it. The co-location brings together professionals involved in designing healthcare environments with those responsible for engineering, operating and maintaining them.
That crossover gives this year’s event a broader focus than architecture and interior design alone. HCD’s conference program includes more than 110 sessions, while the IFHE program adds dedicated discussions on engineering strategy, operational readiness, facility planning and international healthcare infrastructure.
AI, resilience and behavioral health enter the design agenda
The 2026 program will address several issues currently shaping hospital and healthcare facility planning.
Artificial intelligence is included in sessions examining AI-supported programming, predictive workflow analysis and command centers, with a focus on how digital tools can influence architecture and engineering decisions.
Behavioral health is another major theme, with sessions looking at how staffing, visibility, safety and patient dignity can be incorporated into emergency departments, inpatient rooms and outpatient environments.
Resilience and decarbonization will also feature in the program. Discussions will examine how healthcare facilities can reduce emissions while maintaining reliable power, thermal systems and emergency operations — an especially important issue for hospitals that cannot simply pause operations during upgrades.
More than 400 companies in the expo hall
The exhibition side of HCD 2026 is also expanding.
Organizers say more than 400 vendors will exhibit this year, including over 50 first-time exhibitors across categories such as building products, furniture, lighting, medical equipment and technology. The expo hall will include products and services used across healthcare construction and facility operations, from flooring and furniture to medical equipment, communications systems and building technologies.
For the 2026 edition, the first-time combination of design and engineering gives the event a wider view of healthcare environments — from how hospitals are planned and built to how they are operated after opening.
Healthcare Design Conference + Expo 2026 will take place from October 17–20 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.
