Judging

How Our Winners Are Chosen: A Fair and Thorough Process

At the Social Health Awards, we're passionate about highlighting the most impactful patient and caregiver voices. Our refined judging process ensures a fair and thorough evaluation, bringing together diverse perspectives to select our extraordinary winners.


Here’s how it works:

  • Step 1: Eligibility Check. Our Social Health Network team kicks things off, ensuring all entries meet the foundational requirements for each category.
  • Step 2: Internal Review. The Health Union Team then dives deep, conducting rounds of internal judging to narrow down entries to our top 5 finalists per category.
  • Step 3: Expert Selection. The final decision rests with our esteemed panel of external judges, including members from our Patient Leadership Council, Social Health Network peers and key industry leaders. They bring invaluable insights to select our winners.


Industry and Patient Leader Judges

Industry and Patient Leader judges play a critical role in the awards process. We, at Health Union, thank all of the judges for sharing their time and expertise to evaluate the inspiring contributions of this amazing group of health leaders. The support and dedication of the healthcare industry judges, who embrace patient centricity and the voice of the patient, have a meaningful impact on millions of people living with chronic and complex health conditions.


What Our Judges Look For:

Throughout this comprehensive process, our judges pay close attention to several key elements:

"Fit" of the Award: Does the entry not only meet the criteria but also truly embody the values, qualities, and achievements the award recognizes?

Use of Social Media: How effectively has the entrant harnessed the power of social media to increase engagement and create meaningful interactions within the health community?

Information Sharing and Overall Engagement: Does the entrant serve as a shining example of excellence in sharing valuable information and fostering overall community engagement?

This multi-stage process, combining internal expertise with external insights, allows us to truly identify and celebrate the most deserving voices in social health. All decisions are final.


Announcing The Winners:

All finalists and winners will be personally notified via email. Finalists will be announced on the Social Health Network community August 19, 2025. Winners will be announced at our live zoom Social Health Awards webinar on September 12, 2025. 

Please note: Any awards benefits are not transferable. To be considered a finalist and ultimately a winner, individuals must be 18 years of age or older.

FAQs

Health Union is deeply appreciative of our industry judges and the commitment that they have made to our patient award nominees. Therefore, we recognize our judges publicly in a number of ways, not limited to, social media, email, and on the awards website. If you wish to remain anonymous, please see below.

We respect your decision to remain anonymous and appreciate your support in judging. When you signed up as a judge, there was a check box option to remain anonymous. If you can’t recall what you selected, or wish to change your selection, please reach out to contact@socialhealthawards.com.

Sharing your involvement in the program publicly is completely optional, but highly encouraged! Once you’ve completed the judging process, you will receive a shareable graphic to utilize should you want to post about your participation on LinkedIn.

Due to the variety of platforms, condition areas, and journeys, it’s important to remember we aren’t comparing apples to apples. You should not be comparing the number of followers or any other statistic. Instead, we ask that you focus on the content.

Reviewing a finalist’s online presence is key to completing judging. Please alert us if you have difficulties viewing profiles.

The Social Health Award winners will be announced during a virtual awards ceremony. You are more than welcome to attend! As a valued judge, you will receive a special notification immediately following the announcement to let you know who the winners are.

We are thrilled that you participated as a judge and excited you’d like to get more involved in our program. We are always looking for help to improve our awards program, amplify patient voices, and foster valuable connections between patients and industry. If you have ideas or feedback you’d like to share, or simply want to learn about more ways to get involved with Health Union, please reach out to contact@socialhealthawards.com.