Top young leaders in healthcare share how to make an impact in the $3.6 trillion industry

2020 will forever be a year shaped by the coronavirus pandemic and the US healthcare system's response to it.

Hospitals risked getting overrun, the way we went to the doctor changed almost overnight, and a renewed importance was placed on public health.

Amid the turbulent year, young leaders have been working to build a better future for healthcare.

For their work, we've named an impressive group of young leaders to Business Insider's annual list of the 30 people under 40 who are transforming healthcare.

The 30 people were selected from hundreds of nominations, based on their potential to improve healthcare.

They include leaders tackling the pandemic through testing and drug development, as well as clinicians on the front lines. The list also includes people looking to transform how drugs are developed for often-overlooked conditions, or areas of medicine that have been sidelined in the wake of the pandemic.

Read more about the individual honorees:

• How Erik Cardenas, a 38-year-old who taught himself health technology, is shaping a key part of Amazon's plans to transform healthcare
• 39-year-old Mary Rozenman wanted to change the odds of how many experimental drugs make it to approval. One piece of advice changed her entire plan of how to do that.
• How Dr. Andrew Le convinced investors to bet on an entirely new approach to online healthcare just weeks after his house burned down
• How Matt Hollingsworth, a trained physicist, and Anna Brody, an economist from Siberia, created a solution to one of healthcare's most pressing problems
• Julia Hu, a 35-year-old healthcare founder, raised $70 million to help tens of millions of people better manage their chronic diseases
• Anna Huyghues-Despointes, a former VC investor, joined a startup looking to change how we treat cancer. Instead, the 32-year-old has turned her attention to COVID-19 treatments.

The honorees also shared the books they'd recommend to anyone looking to better understand the complicated $3.6 trillion healthcare industry.

Their picks included tales of Silicon Valley health startups like "Bad Blood" by John Carreyrou, as well as from books written by doctors and surgeons like Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee and Dr. Atul Gawande.

The 26 best books to read if you want to disrupt US healthcare, according to top young leaders in the $3.6 trillion industry

Subscribe to Business Insider to read the full list of 30 leaders under 40:

Meet the 30 young leaders who are forging a new future for healthcare in the pandemic's shadow