The Irish Heart Foundation took home top prize at the recent Digital Media Awards for its heart failure public awareness campaign.

The Irish Heart Foundation together with communications group Edelman won gold at the 2020 EPA Digital Media Awards in the ‘Best in Government and Not-for-Profit’ category for its highly successful Heart Failure Campaign: Don’t Ignore the Signs. The campaign was supported by Novartis.

Now in their 17th year, the EPA Digital Media Awards are the most prestigious digital awards in Ireland. They recognise creativity and innovation across multiple areas of an ever-evolving sector which includes digital content creation, advertising and marketing, mobile media, social networking, app development, web design and development.

The winners were announced at a special gala award evening at the Clayton Hotel in Dublin on Friday (21 February) which was hosted by Newstalk’s Tom Dunne.

The Irish Heart Foundation’s Heart Failure Campaign Don’t Ignore the Signs aims to educate the public about the warning signs and symptoms of heart failure and it also includes an online symptom checker which is available at www.knowyourheart.ie.

The symptoms of heart failure include, shortness of breath, swollen ankles and fatigue. It also encourages people not to ignore these symptoms, but to discuss them with a doctor as soon as possible.

Former Sunday Game presenter Michael Lyster who himself lives with heart failure is the campaign ambassador.

Speaking about the success of the campaign last year, Michael Lyster said: “At the beginning of the campaign, we called on the people of Ireland to make heart failure awareness a top priority. The response to date has been fantastic. Since the beginning of the summer, over 11,000 people visited KnowYourHeart.ie to use the symptom checker, and over 750 attended the information events to learn more about managing their condition. We’re making sure that this once ignored condition gets the attention it deserves, ensuring that anyone experiencing symptoms gets to the doctor and diagnosed as early as possible.”

Currently 90,000 people in Ireland live with heart failure. However, heart failure doesn’t mean your heart is about to stop. Most people live active and comfortable lives. Heart failure is a very manageable condition if caught and treated early. The Irish Heart Foundation runs a number of support groups to help those affected by the condition to cope better and feel less isolated.