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The Healthies Are Back: Health Tech’s Marketing and Product Design Awards
The Healthies are back for season two: the only awards program recognizing marketing, brand, and product design work in health tech. Submissions are open through January 29, and they’re free to apply.
The Company Advice Team
Posted on
October 20, 2026
Key Takeaways
- The Healthies are an annual awards program recognizing the best marketing, brand, and product design work in health tech, judged across two categories: Best Marketing + Brand and Best Product Design (UI/UX).
- Applications for the second annual Healthies are open through January 29, 2027, free to enter, and open to any digital health startup whose marketing, brand, or product design team wants to submit its own work, or nominate another team.
- McKinsey & Company found that companies investing in strong product design significantly outperform their competitors on both revenue growth and shareholder returns.
Companies with stronger product design post revenue growth 32 percentage points higher, and shareholder returns 56 percentage points higher than their competitors, according to McKinsey’s study on the business value of design.1
So why don’t product design and marketing teams get a lil more love? Sales gets the contract signed. Engineering ships the build. Product design and marketing cover nearly everything else: the entire user’s journey, before, during, and after the deal closes. How easy is the product to use? Does the flow make sense? Is it truly user friendly? How did they find out about the brand in the first place? And how did they grow to trust the brand in the end?
These are some of the most visible parts of the work, and they’re also the parts that get overlooked the most. That’s why we launched The Healthies.
What are the Healthies?
The Healthies are an annual awards program recognizing the best marketing, brand, and product design work in health tech.
- Best Marketing + Brand recognizes the campaigns, websites, brand systems, and messaging strategies that make health tech companies stand out and feel human. The work that tells the right story, clearly, boldly, and beautifully.
- Best Product Design (UI/UX) recognizes the interfaces and flows that make a complex clinical or health product usable by actual patients and clinicians. The work that respects the user and solves a real problem.
Last season’s winners spotlight
Last season, Counsel Health took home the first-ever trophy for Best Product Design. Since then, they’ve partnered with Oura to bring AI-enabled care directly into the Oura app. Ash took Best Marketing + Brand and this summer they were named one of TIME’s World’s Top HealthTech Companies. Learn more about last season’s winners here.
Applications are open through January 29, 2027
Submissions opened October 6, 2026 and close January 29, 2027/ Finalists are announced March 2, 2027, and winners are announced March 24, 2027.
Applying is free! Eligible applicants are digital health startups with a live product or brand, and the submission should come from the marketing, brand, or product design team behind the work. If you’d rather point to a marketing or design team behind a health tech company you admire, nominations are welcome.
Ready to apply?
If your work made a health tech brand sound like a trustworthy company instead of AI-generated slop, or made a product so easy to use that nobody wanted to throw their device across the room, this award was made for you.
Apply for The Healthies today
1 Sheppard B, Sarrazin H, Kouyoumjian G, Dore F. The business value of design. McKinsey Quarterly. Published October 25, 2018. Accessed October 9, 2026. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-business-value-of-design
Frequently asked questions
01
What are The Healthies?
The Healthies are an annual awards program recognizing the best marketing, brand, and product design work in health tech, judged across two categories: Best Marketing + Brand and Best Product Design (UI/UX).
02
How can marketing and product design teams get recognized for their work in health tech?
By applying to The Healthies, an annual awards program built specifically for marketing, brand, and product design work in health tech. Applying is free, and submissions are open through January 29, 2027.
03
Is there an award specifically for health tech product design or UX?
Yes. The Healthies include a Best Product Design (UI/UX) category, recognizing the interfaces and flows that make health tech products usable for patients and clinicians.
04
Does good product design actually increase revenue?
Yes. According to McKinsey & Company, companies that invest in strong product design see significantly higher revenue growth and shareholder returns than their competitors who don’t.The Healthies exist to recognize the teams doing that work, since it’s rarely credited anywhere else.
05
Why are The Healthies important?
Because marketing, brand, and product design decide whether a health tech product actually gets used, trusted, and adopted, and that work rarely gets the recognition sales, engineering, or leadership get. The Healthies exist to close that gap.
