The Norwegian population is ageing and our individual life expectancy is steadily increasing. Lifestyle diseases are also increasing, while expectations toward healthcare are growing. Despite the increase in healthcare budgets, the gap between what funding allows for and what is desirable and implementable is widening. Among the greatest societal challenges are the rapidly growing demand for personnel in the health service and the enormous pressure on the existing workforce. We need to think smarter about the health sector in the future, and we need to base our development work on documented methods and relevant experience.

The Handbook of Healthcare Innovation gives you the tools you need to contribute to innovation in the health service and provides practical advice on how you can:

• involve health service users and providers
• make effective decisions along the way
• navigate public procurement processes
• document the evidence of change as it occurs.

The simple and effective tools are rooted in research-based collaborative projects with major and minor partners from municipalities, hospitals, the business sector and academia, both nationally and internationally.

The Handbook of Healthcare Innovation is a compilation of research conducted by researchers from BI Norwegian Business School, the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo, Akershus University Hospital and Oslo University Hospital. The researchers and other partners have been affiliated with the Centre for Connected Care (C3), a centre for research-driven innovation funded by the Research Council of Norway during the period 2015–2023.

The book’s editors, Kari J. Kværner and Thomas Hoholm, are respected researchers and innovators in the field. In the Handbook of Healthcare Innovation, they share effective methods for stimulating healthcare innovation in practice. The book will be useful for those working in the health service, in hospitals and in health service administration. It is aimed at anyone who wishes to create good quality health services and wants to know more about how to contribute to innovation and change in the health sector.