Innovation pathways to preserve: Rapid healthcare innovation and dissemination during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems rapidly responded to challenges in healthcare delivery with innovation. Innovations developed during the COVID-19 pandemic have filled needed gaps in medical care and many may be sustained long term. The unique conditions and processes that facilitated such rapid, successful, and collective innovation should be explored to support future change in healthcare. Decentralized decision making, crowdsourcing, and nontraditional information sharing may be valuable for ongoing innovation in healthcare delivery. Shared, collective purpose in solving challenges in healthcare appear critical to this work. Health care systems aiming to sustain rapid healthcare delivery innovation should consider these processes and focus on facilitating shared purpose to sustain ongoing innovation.