About the Awards
The Point of Care channel represents a vital and innovative segment of the healthcare marketing industry, reaching patients and providers at the moments that matter most. These awards honor those who have demonstrated excellence by effectively utilizing this channel to create meaningful impact in the healthcare journey.

Point of Care is defined as the moment a patient receives care through an interaction with a healthcare professional in a healthcare setting—including doctor offices, pharmacies, hospitals, other healthcare facilities, and virtual care environments. Point of Care Media targets patients, caregivers, and providers before, during, and after these critical interactions, facilitating important discussions between healthcare professionals and patients to improve outcomes.

Award Categories

Campaign Awards

• Best Branded Point of Care Campaign
  • Recognizing excellence in branded campaigns that strategically engage patients and healthcare providers at the point of care, this award honors initiatives that drive awareness, consideration, and action for specific products or brands within clinical settings. Judges will evaluate creative excellence, strategic point of care activation, audience engagement, contextual relevance to the clinical environment, and measurable business results.
• Best Unbranded Point of Care Campaign
  • This award recognizes outstanding disease awareness and health education initiatives that inform and empower without promoting specific branded products. The winning campaign will demonstrate educational impact through evidence-based communication, strategic point of care activation, creative excellence in health education, and meaningful results in building disease awareness and category understanding while maintaining appropriate distance from branded messaging.
• Best Multicultural Point of Care Campaign
  • This award celebrates campaigns that authentically engage diverse cultural communities at the point of care. We're looking for initiatives that go beyond translation to demonstrate true cultural competence, meaningful connection with multicultural audiences, and measurable contributions to health equity. The winning campaign will showcase deep audience understanding, appropriate cultural adaptation, inclusive engagement strategies, and quantifiable impact on reducing health disparities.

 

Individual Achievement Awards

• Rising Star
  • Honoring an individual who has entered the point of care marketing industry within the last one to two years and quickly become an advocate for the channel. This award recognizes newcomers who bring fresh perspective, demonstrate rapid impact, show innovative thinking, actively engage with the industry community, and display a clear growth trajectory that positions them as emerging leaders in the field.
• Lifetime Achievement
  • This prestigious award celebrates an individual who has made extraordinary and sustained contributions to the point of care marketing industry throughout their career, leaving a lasting legacy that has helped shape and advance the field. Recipients will have demonstrated transformative industry impact, sustained leadership and mentorship, pioneering innovation, lasting influence on standards and best practices, and unwavering dedication to advancing and professionalizing the point of care marketing industry.

POCMA Eligibility
The POCMA Awards are open to all agencies, manufacturers, suppliers, media partners, and individuals in the life sciences industry.

For campaign awards, entries must represent Point of Care media executed in the United States between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2025. Qualifying campaigns must have been active for at least part of this eligibility period but need not have launched during this timeframe nor run for its entirety.

For individual awards, nominees must meet the specific experience requirements outlined in each category.

Self-nominations are not permitted for Rising Star or Lifetime Achievement awards, though any individual working in the point of care marketing industry may submit nominations for others.

Guidelines to Submit Entry
Please follow these steps to submit for a Point of Care Excellence Award.

Judging Process
Entries will be judged, and winners selected by a committee of industry experts. If a judge has a potential conflict of interest, including, but not restricted to, working for an agency that submitted that campaign and/or being involved with any aspect of the project, that judge will be removed from evaluating that entry. Any judge has the ability to move entries between categories if they believe another category is appropriate and more suitable. Category changes will be made solely at the discretion of the judges, and their decisions will be final. 

Judging will be based on the following: 
Campaigns that demonstrated performance based on their individual objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs may be qualitative or quantitative and must be noted in order to determine success. 
Winners will be announced at the Point of Care Summit on March 18, 2026.

Entry Rules
Each entry must be submitted online. Please refer to the entry form section in these entry requirements for further details. 

After entries are submitted, a panel of judges will begin a thorough process that includes pre-scoring each submission, subsequent deliberation, and the ultimate decision of each winner.  Scoring of entries will be made solely at the discretion of the judges, and their decisions will be final. Only the highest-scoring entries will be honored. 

POCMA reserves the right to publish details of the Entry(ies) on its website and showcase the winner(s) at the annual Point of Care Summit.   

FAQs

1. What is the eligibility period for the entries?
   Entries must represent Point of Care media (as defined above) that was executed in the United States between January 1, 2024, and December 30, 2025. Qualifying campaigns must have been active for at least part of the eligibility period but need not necessarily have been launched during this time frame nor have run for the entirety of this window. 
2. When are the winners announced? 
   The awards will be announced during our annual Point of Care Summit on March 18, 2026. For any specific questions, please contact events@pocmarketing.org.
3. Do I need to submit a video as support material? 
   Videos to support your submission are strongly recommended but are optional. Video materials are the best opportunity to bring your submission to life.
4. Can I change my written submission after it has been submitted?
   No. Unfortunately, you are unable to access your entry once it has been submitted. For submissions submitted in error, please contact events@pocmarketing.org.
5. What if my submission has confidential information?
   All information submitted must be approved to share with the industry in the event your campaign wins.
6. Can the submissions be blinded?
   If you do not have permission to include the brand name in the submission, details on the type of product category must be included.

Terms and Conditions

Definitions. In these Terms and Conditions, the following terms have the following meanings:

• “Awards” means the particular Awards.
• “Awards Entry Page” means the entry webpage where information and Terms and Conditions relevant to the particular Awards can be found.
• “Entry/ies” means all material and information submitted for the particular Awards.
• “Entrant” or “You” means any company, individual, or organization that submits an Entry for the relevant Awards.
• “Entry Requirements” means the specific submission requirements relevant to the particular Awards, including without limitation the rules and processes regarding eligibility, judging and other Entry information relevant to the submissions.
• “Point of Care Marketing Association” or “POCMA” or “We” or “Us” is the trade association comprised of member companies affiliated with point of care marketing.
• “Terms and Conditions” means terms and conditions applicable to the Entry/ies and Awards.

Eligibility
 

1. 1 To be eligible, all Entries must comply with these Terms and Conditions, including requirements set forth in the Entry Requirements.

1.2 All entries must be submitted by the noted deadline. 

1.3 Entries are deemed accepted upon submission.

1.4 Entries must be original and owned, and no additional permission or approvals from a third party should be required for use of the Entry materials as stated herein and on the Awards Entry Page.

1.5 Entries must be truthful, and factual where applicable.

1.6 We reserve the right to reject any Entry/ies and/or rescind any Award that fails to comply with stated requirements. Entrant remains responsible for any Entry fees. No refunds will be issued as a result of rescission.

1.7 We reserve the right to reject any Entry/ies and/or rescind any Award at any time that is inconsistent with POCMA’s core values, including but not limited to the support of integrity in social and corporate responsibility.

2. JUDGING
2.1 The Entry Requirements may provide judging criteria for the Awards. In any event, all Entries will be judged by a panel of selected judges.

2.2 All consideration of Entries is based solely on the merits of the information provided in your Entry.

2.3 The decision of the panel of judges will be final.

2.4 We reserve the right to make or not to make any particular award in any given category.

3. LICENSE
3.1 By submitting the Entry, the Entrant hereby grants to POCMA, a worldwide, perpetual, royalty free, non-exclusive, right and revocable license, to use, reproduce, publish, distribute, display, modify (for formatting purposes), non-confidential portions of the Entry (such as campaign images or videos) and any images, appearance or likeness provided or captured at an associated event(s) in any media in connection with the Awards for educational, promotional, and publicity purposes (“License”).

3.2 Each Entrant represents and warrants that it owns or has secured the necessary permission or approvals from third party(ies) to provide the License for POCMA use as described hereinabove.

4. CONFIDENTIALITY
4.1 Your Entry and any supporting documentation will not be considered confidential information unless clearly identified as ‘Confidential.’

4.2 Entrant agrees that POCMA can use the information (or parts of the information) contained in the Entry submitted in accordance with the Terms and Conditions, including  for the Awards presentation, and/or for the promotion or publicity of the Awards, in any media.

4.3 If certain details in the Entry cannot be viewed by the public and must be kept confidential, the Entrant must label the Entry details with the word ‘CONFIDENTIAL,’ and additionally, clearly mark the specific portions in the Entry that are not to be publicly disclosed (“Confidential Information”). Entrants are asked not to label entire Entries as ‘Confidential”. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Confidential Information does not include information that is public facing or generally known to the public at the time of disclosure or becomes generally known through no wrongful act on the part of the POCMA.

4.4 Entrant understands and agrees that POCMA may be required to disclose Confidential Information included in the Entry to comply with applicable laws or governmental regulations or a valid order issued by a court or government agency of competent jurisdiction.  

5. LIABILITY
5.1 Entrant agrees to indemnify and hold harmless POCMA from any and all claims, liabilities, losses, costs and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) and damages arising out of or resulting from Entrant’s breach of any representation or warranty contained in the Terms and Conditions.

5.2 You shall not exclude or limit your liability under these Terms and Conditions, including for loss of goodwill and reputation.

5.3 We shall not (whether in contract, tort, negligence, statutory duty or otherwise) be liable to You under these Terms and Conditions for consequential, indirect or special damages (including indirect loss of profit and indirect loss of revenue).

5.4 Subject to the clauses above, our maximum aggregate liability to you under these Terms and Conditions (whether arising in contract, tort, negligence, statutory duty or otherwise) shall not exceed the Entry fees You paid to Us for the related Award submission.