Importance Affordable surgical innovations (ASIs) provide simple, safe and equitable solutions in resource-limited settings. Effective dissemination is needed for widespread adoption and uptake of ASIs in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, surgical systems in these settings face challenges with adoption and uptake of ASIs, which remain unknown and/or unused even after supporting evidence is published. A surgery-specific, implementation science-informed framework can provide a roadmap delineating the actions needed to achieve this goal; however, none exist currently. This prompted the development of a well-defined roadmap for this purpose.

Methods The roadmap was developed after several rounds of structured brainstorming discussions among the authors, who are LMIC-based experts in academic surgery, ASIs, global health and implementation science.

Results and conclusion The proposed ‘DISSEMINATE’ roadmap presents 18 non-sequential domains to be considered in a comprehensive approach to equitable accessibility for surgical innovations: Design of the innovation; Innovate by combining the IDEAL (Idea, Development, Exploration, Assessment and Long-term follow-up) surgical innovation framework with local multidisciplinary expertise; Substantiate available evidence; Scale up application of evidence in surgical practice; Share knowledge on multidisciplinary platforms; Sustainability; Endorsement of the innovation by local catalysts; Media promotion; Identify early adopters; Improve and refine the innovation; Improvise during setbacks; Implementation science methods; Navigate through barriers; Aspirational affordability; Advocacy for the value of ASIs; Tools for scalability and adoption; Evaluate impact of dissemination; and Extend use of the innovation to resource-rich settings. This surgery-specific roadmap provides structure for effective dissemination to help in overcoming know-do gaps in the use of ASIs in LMICs.