EFA

Jury member Anne Elisabeth Eriksrud, Norwegian Asthma and Allergy Association, with Johanna Edoff, Medituner (AsthmaTuner). All the credits are reserved to © EFA/Elio Germani.

Rewarding the asthma and COPD digital care innovators

EFA is delighted to announce the winners of EFA Patients’ Digital Prize winners for 2023. These awards honour those who have made significant contributions to the development of e-health technologies for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease care. The Prize Winners were announced during the award ceremony on 27 April in Ghent, Belgium in the presence of EFA's 45 patient organisations from 26 countries, to benefit from structured exchanges with the European asthma and COPD patient community. 

A Prize from patients to reward patient-centred technology for respiratory diseases

EFA awarded the first edition of the EFA Patients' Digital Prize for e-health technologies for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) care. Whether they are connected medical devices, telemedicine, e-health apps or digital health platforms, chronic respiratory disease patients need to be at the core of the technologies that support them self-managing their care and getting support from their healthcare professionals. This was the principle behind the work of the jury, which selected one winner in each of the three competition categories: AsthmaTuner by Medituner AB won in the best digital technology for asthma care, RespiraSense by PMD Solutions triumphed in the best digital technology for COPD care category, and NuvoAir Home from NuvoAir earned the award for best digital technology for both asthma and COPD care.

EFA Patients' Digital Prize at the Awards Ceremony in Ghent, Belgium with EFA's members associations. All the credits are reserved to © Elio Germani.

A European recognition from patients

The applicants for the EFA Patients’ Digital Prize fulfilled a thorough questionnaire that served to evaluate the development process and assess their solutions against six crucial criteria: accessibility, partnership with healthcare professionals, convenience, support and security, prevention, and equity.

Announcement of the EFA Patients' Digital Prize Winners, from left to right, Myles Murray, PMD Solutions, Johanna Edoff, Medituner (AsthmaTuner), Helen Parrott, NuvoAir.

All the credits are reserved to © EFA/Elio Germani.

AsthmaTuner, from Medituner AB is a digital medical device distributed in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the USA. It is used as a self-management device for patients with asthma. The app allows patients to have instant and objective instructions on how to adjust treatment based on the variability of their disease.

RespiraSense, from PMD Solutions is an accurate, motion tolerant and continuous respiratory rate monitor that measures chest and abdomen movement associated with the mechanics of breathing.

On the category for best digital technology for both asthma and COPD care, the jury awarded the prize to NuvoAir Home from NuvoAir, which is a platform designed to enable data sharing between healthcare professionals and people with long-term respiratory conditions. This allows clinicians to make faster decisions while helping patients to understand better their lung health.

All the applicants acknowledged the Terms of Reference for the competition. The award ceremony recordings are accessible on YouTube.

Selection Process

To determine the winners of each category, an EFA Office-selected panel of six persons agreed to the Terms of Reference for Jury Members. The jury included an asthma patient representative from EFA Members, a COPD patient representative from EFA Members, a young asthma patient from the European Allergy & Asthma Youth Parliament, a healthcare professional from the respiratory sector, a digital health industry expert, and a representative from EFA Sustainable Corporate Partners (pharma), which support the EFA DI_GIT project with unrestricted grants.

The 2023 jury members were:

• Armando Ruiz, International Manager at FENEAR, EFA Board member and DTx Club founder
• Anne Elisabeth Eriksrud, Secretary General at NAAF, Norwegian Asthma and Allergy Association
• Eibhilin Doherty, European Allergy & Asthma Youth Parliament Member
• Richard Pratt, General Practitioner & Digital Health Advisor
• Tino Marti, form ETHEL Secretariat and eHealth Project Manager
• Susanne Brandl, Global Patient Partnership Principal Director at Roche

Jury members Anne Elisabeth Eriksrud, Norwegian Asthma and Allergy Association and Armando Ruiz, EFA's Board Member, Spanish Allergy and Respiratory Diseases Association at the Award Ceremony.
All the credits are reserved to © EFA/Elio Germani.

Disclaimer 

The EFA Patients’ Digital Prize acts purely as a recognition and acknowledgement of digital developments in health which put patients at the heart of digital solutions. The EFA Patients’ Digital Prize does not certify in any form whatsoever the use of an end product that arises from the submission(s). The prize applies only to the digital technology as submitted by the applicant, and not to any subsequent developments of that digital technology. As such, EFA does not take any responsibility for, nor does it recognise any of the further developments of, the submission beyond what has been submitted for the prize consideration.

Acknowledgements

The EFA’s DIG_IT Prize is being made possible thanks to unrestricted grants from EFA’s Sustainable Corporate Partners Chiesi and Roche.
The EFA sponsors for the prize have no responsibility on the winning technologies of the prize for this EFA’s independent project.