There’s no shortage of talk about innovation in healthcare. But when we talk about innovation at Healthcare Innovation, we’re interested in something a little more concrete.

What problem were you trying to solve? What did you actually do? Did it work? And, perhaps most importantly, could another healthcare organization learn from what you did?

Those are the questions we look for when reviewing submissions for our annual Innovator Awards. And this year’s winners gave us some pretty compelling answers.

I’m pleased to introduce the three winners of the 2026 Healthcare Innovation Innovator Awards:

• ACURE4Moms, for a statewide approach to improving maternal and infant health by bringing together health information exchange, data analytics, community-based doula support and evidence-based strategies to address disparities in maternal care.
• Cuyuna Regional Medical Center, for a nurse-led, EHR-integrated preoperative optimization program that helped reduce same-day joint replacement cancellations from 9% to just 2% while improving patient readiness and operating room efficiency in a rural Critical Access Hospital.
• Southern Nevada Department of Veterans Affairs, for using artificial intelligence, virtual reality and immersive learning to rethink workforce education, dramatically reducing training costs while improving staff knowledge, confidence and preparedness.

Three very different organizations. Three very different challenges. But there’s a common thread running through all three: They saw a problem and found a practical way to do something about it. That's really what these awards are about.

Since 2009, the Healthcare Innovation Innovator Awards have recognized hospitals, health systems, medical groups, health information exchanges, government agencies and other organizations that are finding new ways to improve healthcare delivery. We look for innovation that goes beyond a good idea or an impressive technology demonstration. We want to see evidence that something changed for the better. And that's what stood out about this year's winners.

At ACURE4Moms, innovation means bringing data, technology and community-based care together to tackle some of the persistent challenges in maternal and infant health.

At Cuyuna Regional Medical Center, a rural hospital found a way to use its EHR and a nurse-led workflow to address a very practical problem: patients showing up for surgery who weren't quite ready to go.

And at the  Southern Nevada VA, innovation took the form of AI-powered virtual patients and immersive environments that allow staff to practice difficult scenarios without having to leave their posts.

The approaches couldn't be more different, but they all share something I think is increasingly important in healthcare innovation: they're grounded in the realities of healthcare. They're not just about what's possible. They're about what is useful.

Over the next three days, we'll take a closer look at each of these projects and the people behind them.

• On Sept. 9, we'll look at how ACURE4Moms is bringing together technology, data and community support to address maternal and infant health.
• On Sept. 10, we'll head to rural Minnesota to see how Cuyuna Regional Medical Center tackled surgical cancellations by rethinking what happens before a patient ever gets to the operating room.
• And on Sept. 11, we'll take a closer look at how Bonnie Barti and her colleagues at the Southern Nevada VA are using AI and immersive learning to rethink how healthcare workers train and prepare for challenging situations.

I'm particularly excited about these stories because they get at the heart of what healthcare innovation should be: people finding better ways to solve the problems in front of them, and creating something that others can learn from.

Congratulations to all three of our 2026 Innovator Awards winners. And thank you to everyone who took the time to share your work with us this year. There are a lot of people doing thoughtful, creative and important work across healthcare, and we’re glad to have the opportunity to tell some of those stories.

I hope you'll follow along over the next few days. These are three stories worth knowing about.

Learn more about Healthcare Innovation's Annual Innovator Awards Program