Data-Driven Healthcare Design: Highlights from AHDC 2025 in Adelaide

dRofus had four team members attend the AHDC 2025 Conference in Adelaide last week, and we’re already looking forward to the 2026 event. Thank you to the AHDC Committee and everyone involved in organizing such a valuable conference. It was a fantastic opportunity to learn about inspiring projects and engage with passionate leaders in healthcare design.

The site tours, presentations, and discussions all shared a common theme: creating better health environments starts with understanding people and designing with them in mind. The event also challenged us to consider a vital question:  how do we design for a changing world?

A few of sessions really stood out for us:

• The Adelaide Bio-Med City Walk lead by Julian Ashton was absolutely fantastic! Starting off at UniSA’s Bradley Building designed by BVN in partnership with Swanbury Penglase. Flexible, open-plan labs that bring together research, people and learning, technical spaces and large interconnecting atrium spaces all within a highly constrained site. We concluded at the iconic SAHMRI building, designed by Woods Bagot to inspire medical innovation and future-focused research in Adelaide. A stunning façade, flexible internal spaces and ample light empower hundreds of researchers to work together, creating a landmark for health science that looks to tomorrow’s possibilities. One of the best site tours we’ve ever been on, lead by Project Leader Thomas Masullo. SAHMRI is Adelaide’s equivalent to the Opera House and we can totally see why!

• S, M, L: Scalable and Cost-Effective Strategies to Improve Health Outcomes by Angela Lee from HKS. This presentation showcased 3 projects of differing size, with radically different budgets and explored the innovative design principles HKS uses to create spaces that adapt to clients’ evolving needs. Angela shared how HKS incorporated flexibility and scalability in design, leading to more efficient design solutions, improved patient experiences, and better health outcomes overall – in a highly entertaining and approachable way. There were many takeaways for the audience and many examples of how thoughtful design can make a lasting impact across varying scales and budgets.

Annabel Frazer, President of the newly formed Australasian Association of Health Planners (AAHP), officially introduced the new not-for-profit organisation. Annabel shared the vision behind AAHP, a dedicated space for health planners across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand to connect, learn, grow and shape the future of the profession together. She encouraged anyone involved in system, service, facility or technical health planning to get involved and help build this community.

She also highlighted dRofus as one of the key tools widely used by Health Planners today to support health facility planning. Check it out here: https://aahp.online

Throughout the conference, there was a strong focus on collaboration and the smart use of data to improve outcomes across healthcare projects.

At dRofus, we’re committed to supporting teams who are navigating these challenges helping them plan, manage, and deliver complex projects with confidence and clarity.

If you joined us at AHDC, we’d love to hear what resonated most with you?

If you’re interested in how dRofus can help your team manage healthcare project data, coordinate stakeholders and streamline planning, let’s set up a time to talk or arrange a demo.