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Juror Selection

The Medical Design Excellence Awards (MDEA) program is the premier competition for the medical technology community, recognizing both the design achievements and healthcare contributions of medical product manufacturers. Judging of each year’s entries is conducted by an impartial panel of jurors who carefully review all of the submissions and narrow them down to a select group of exceptional products in each of the competition’s 10 categories.

Recommendations of potential MDEA jurors come from a wide variety of sources, including academic and professional organizations, industry associations, and previous jurors. Background materials about juror candidates are reviewed by a panel of medical industry editors from Canon Communications LLC (Los Angeles), publisher of the MDEA program’s sponsoring publication, Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry magazine. These editors select each year’s jurors as necessary to provide balanced expertise for the competition’s categories.

Because Canon’s editors recognize that the quality of the MDEA program depends on the quality of the jurors selected, they look for individuals who have solid experience in and knowledge of the medical device industry. The jury selection panel equally values the participation of individuals who have demonstrated their concern for the industry and who will add depth and diversity of expertise to the judging process.

The jury panel typically encompasses experts from a wide range of healthcare- and design-related fields, including clinical practice, biomedical engineering, human factors, industrial design, manufacturing, and other areas. Selection of jurors usually begins in the fall and is completed by the end of each calendar year. Jurors are typically appointed for a term of two years, renewable after a one-year absence.

When considering juror nominees, Canon’s editors pay particular attention to the need for a balanced, multidisciplinary, and impartial jury. For this reason, jurors cannot be affiliated with a company that is submitting a product for consideration. Entries are not accepted from sponsoring companies or from jurors, their companies, or those companies’ subsidiaries, in the year they act as sponsors or jurors. Any product thus disqualified may be entered in a subsequent year.

Such independence and impartiality is a leading reason for the industrywide acceptance and success that the MDEA program has enjoyed. MDEA jurors—past and present—have set a high standard for judging excellence and fair competition.

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