European Patient Digital Health Awards 2021, Innovative Solutions for Patients

MSD Europe, in partnership with the Digital Health Academy (DHA) and with the support of Allied for Startups, recently designed, produced and managed the European Patient Digital Health Awards (#EUPDHA21).

Based on the original and highly successful Italian-only PDHA version that first launched in 2018 to promote digital innovation in the disease prevention and treatment journey, EU PDHA focused on rewarding the development and implementation of digital health solutions aimed at improving care and quality of life for patients and their caregivers.

The 2021 competition encompassed four award categories, which were Digital Prevention and Diagnostics, Mental Health, and Social Support, New Ways to Interact with Healthcare Teams and Providers, Disease Monitoring and Therapeutics, and Returning to Care (in the context of COVID). The MSD-DHA team targeted digital health solutions already being used with patients, paying special attention to those developed with or involving patient organizations.

The Call for Applications went out to individuals, patient associations, medical professionals, scientific foundations, public and private universities/educational institutions, startups, IT, and services companies based in the EU, EFTA, Balkans, and UK.

Among the 64 qualifying projects submitted during the application period were apps and telemedicine platforms, wearable technologies and sensors, DTx, AI, and IoT products, VR, AR, Big Data, and blockchain-based solutions, social media tools, instant messaging systems, and narrative medicine products.

European PDHA’s esteemed volunteer judging panel members were Benedikt Blomeyer, Allied for Startups Director of EU Policy; Mariano Votta, Director of Active Cizitenship Network; Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, Director-General of DIGITALEUROPE; Jan Geissler, European Cancer Organisation Patient Advisory Committee Representative; Antonella Cardone, Director of the European Cancer Patient Coalition; Donna Walsh, European Federation of Neurological Associations Executive Director; Dr. Usman Khan, Visiting Professor at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and FIPRA Senior Advisor; and Mihai Negrea, Digital Entrepreneur at the Young Coalition for Prevention and Vaccination.

The Awards Ceremony announcing the winning projects will stream at 4:00 PM CET on September 23, 2021 via Digital Health Academy’s YouTube and Facebook channels and on the PDHA.eu website, so be sure to join the broadcast and tune in for additional follow-up news.