BidgeeCon: bringing the conference experience home
At a glance
77 registrations for MPHN’s inaugural BidgeeCon primary healthcare conference
85–93% of participants said the accredited learning outcomes were entirely met
88.9% attendance rate
Respected and well-known speakers discuss bigger picture health reforms: College led GP training, NSW ADHD reforms, MDT models of care, and Artificial Intelligence in primary care
For health professionals working across regional and rural communities, continuing professional development can come with a significant hidden cost: hours on the road, flights and accommodation, and valuable time away from family and loved ones.
In June 2026, MPHN tried something different.
The inaugural BidgeeCon brought a major primary healthcare conference experience to Wagga Wagga, giving health professionals from across the Murrumbidgee access to expert education, practical training and each other without having to leave the region.
“BidgeeCon really came out of our passion to try and provide education and connection and learning opportunities locally,” MPHN CEO Narelle Mills said. “To bring expertise to the region so that our workforce doesn't need to travel to get access to expert education, but more importantly, the opportunity for our practitioners, our GPs, nursing staff, allied health, to build those local connections.”
Held over one-and-a-half days, BidgeeCon combined hands-on clinical workshops with expert presentations, discussions about health system reform and opportunities to network. Its 9.5 hours of Continuing Professional Development covered everything from CPR, wound care and ECG interpretation to dementia, ADHD reforms, nurse-led clinics, shared medical appointments, multidisciplinary care and artificial intelligence.
Importantly, national expertise sat alongside local knowledge. Regional specialists and practitioners shared the program, helping participants better understand the services, referral pathways and expertise available on their doorstep.
For GP Dr Jennifer Smith, that local context was what set BidgeeCon apart.
“The advantage of doing training locally is that we all get what the biggest systems around us are. We all get what the challenges are for our patients,” she said. “We often have similar patient cohorts, but we spend so long in isolation from each other, building our general practices in isolation that we can often miss easy fixes to local problems.”
It was also an opportunity for the region’s health workforce to learn from one another and experience new ways of delivering care.
GP Dr Pitipanage Fernando said, “A session on nurse-led clinics introduced him to an approach he had never considered in eight years of practice.”
The results suggest the BidgeeCon model worked and the event was a great success. It attracted 77 registrations, with 56 delegates attending on Friday and 64 on Saturday. The Saturday evening social cocktail event at the Gardens, allowed for informal networking and banter, whilst being magically entertained by Jay Cristo, Magician and Mentalist.
Participant evaluations found 85-93% believed the accredited learning outcomes were entirely met, with attendees reporting increased knowledge and confidence and an intention to make changes in their workplaces. BidgeeCon also achieved an attendance rate of 88.9% — a significant improvement on the 25-40% non-attendance rate experienced across MPHN’s free education events in the previous year.
But perhaps its greatest impact was harder to quantify: bringing people who often work at considerable distances from one another into the same room.
As Dr Smith put it: “What you can't get elsewhere is a room full of peers who've actually created solutions to make a difference locally, and that's invaluable.”
For MPHN, that combination of learning, connection and local relevance has created a model worth building on, with BidgeeCon planned to return in 2028.
Images of busy room or hands-on workshop (CPR?) + Video