BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making attended Informatics for Health 2017 in Manchester at the end of April. Combining Medical Informatics Europe 2017 (from the European Federation for Medical Informatics) with the Farr Institute International Conference 2017, the congress provided a platform for talks and sessions covering a wide range of topics in health informatics from the use of linked data in health research to information technology from the patient perspective. Here we look back at some of the highlights.