More Than 30 Years of Applying Quality Improvement Methods to Meet Current and Future Health Care Challenges
IHI Milestones
Watch a one-minute video of major IHI milestones.
IHI Timeline
View or download the complete IHI Timeline.
Founded in 1991, Our Work Is Grounded in Science
IHI was officially founded in 1991, but our work began in the late 1980s as part of the National Demonstration Project on Quality Improvement in Health Care, led by Donald Berwick, MD, MPP, and a group of visionary individuals committed to redesigning health care into a system without errors, waste, delays, and unsustainable costs. Since then, we’ve grown from an initial collection of grant-supported programs to a self-sustaining organization with worldwide influence.
Our work is grounded in science, and we use and teach
practical quality improvement methods to enable sustainable changes in health and health care. In large systems and small villages, we have taken improvement methods originally used in the manufacturing industry and applied them to improving all aspects of health and care.
Now, with more than
30 years of experience on which to build, IHI has evolved to meet current and future health care challenges. Three decades of teaching, coaching, convening, and caring — learning what works, and what we can do better. While our programs, projects, and priorities have changed with the times, we remain steadfastly committed to our mission to improve health and health care worldwide.
We hope to one day reach a place where health care doesn't need improving. Until that time comes, we look forward to another 30 years of making it better, with
courage, love, equity, and trust at the center of all that we do.
