Table 1 Main findings on social innovation in health approach characteristics

• Holistic vision

• Seeks to save costs

• Adopts technologies or products oriented to solve problems in health

• Proposes models and strategies, the creation of new capabilities or the rediscovery of forgotten ones

• Promotes change and sustainability of actions through education and capacity building

• Promotes intersectorality and multidisciplinarity

• Recognizes the importance of community participation, empowerment and generates equitable power relations

• The experiences denote the need to act in situations of social inequity in health

• No conceptual development was found specifically on the social innovation in health approach

• There is no clear distinction between technological innovation in health, innovation in health and social innovation in health