The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) today announced the appointment of Ronald Wyatt, MD, MHA, as Chief Medical Officer (CMO). In this newly created leadership role, Dr. Wyatt will help shape IHI’s clinical perspective and strategy, bringing scientific credibility, frontline insight, and proven leadership to the organization’s work to improve health and health care worldwide.
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Ronald Wyatt, MD, MHA, joins the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) as its first Chief Medical Officer.
Dr. Wyatt is a respected figure in patient safety, health equity, and quality improvement, with more than 30 years of experience across some of the most consequential health institutions in the US and globally. He is also a deeply engaged member of the IHI community, having contributed to the organization’s health equity work in several leadership roles. He joins IHI following a competitive executive search.
“Ron brings the rare combination of clinical insight, scientific credibility, and lived commitment to equity that this role requires,” said Sylvia Trent-Adams, PhD, RN, President and CEO of IHI. “He has spent his career connecting improvement work to the real experiences of patients, families, and communities, and his longstanding relationship with IHI gives him a deep understanding of who we are and where we can lead next. We are proud to welcome him to IHI in this new role.”
A Career Focused on Safer, More Equitable Care
Dr. Wyatt was the inaugural Patient Safety Officer at The Joint Commission, where he developed sentinel event analysis for the organization, led the team that authored the widely referenced Patient Safety Systems Chapter, and created the Quick Safety publication that health system leaders worldwide continue to rely on today. He has since served in senior leadership roles across multiple sectors and two continents:
- Chief Quality Officer, Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar
- Chief Quality Officer, Cook County Health, Chicago, Illinois
- Medical Director, Patient Safety Center, US Defense Health Agency
- Chief Science and Medical Officer, Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine
He is a board-certified physician who has published extensively on patient safety, health equity, diagnostic excellence, safety culture, and the social determinants of health in peer-reviewed journals and in multiple IHI white papers. He has been recognized three times as a Top 50 Patient Safety Expert in the US by Becker’s Hospital Review and is the founder of Achieving Health Equity LLC.
Dr. Wyatt’s commitment to equity is both professional and personal. He became the first African American Chief Resident at the St. Louis University School of Medicine, and has spent a career working to dismantle the structural barriers that put patient safety at risk. He has written and spoken extensively about how racism and inequity function not as separate social concerns but as direct threats to patient safety.
“Health equity is more than a program or a priority, it is a patient safety imperative,” said Dr. Wyatt. “Everything I have seen over three decades tells me that we cannot achieve the outcomes we seek without honest dialogue about who does and does not benefit from progress. IHI has done important work to advance equity, and my goal is to help embed it even more deeply into our science, our solutions, and the systems we work with.”
A Longstanding IHI Community Member with a Vision for What’s Next
Dr. Wyatt has served as an IHI Senior Fellow, former co-chair of IHI’s Health Equity Initiative, faculty for IHI’s Leadership for Health Equity Professional Development Program, and co-author of IHI’s Achieving Health Equity: A Guide for Health Care Organizations white paper. In his new role as CMO, Dr. Wyatt will build on his longstanding relationship with IHI to help advance the organization’s strategic priorities, ensuring that the IHI’s efforts are grounded in scientific excellence and deliver measurable improvements in outcomes for patients, communities, and health systems.
“IHI’s mission has been central to my work for years, and I have seen firsthand what this organization is capable of,” said Dr. Wyatt. “What excites me about this moment is the opportunity to push further, moving beyond translating what we know into practice, and generating what the field needs next. Health systems are facing challenges that don’t yet have answers, and innovation can uncover opportunities that systems and communities may not even know they have. That is where IHI is positioned to lead.”
About the Institute for Healthcare Improvement
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is a leading, globally recognized not-for-profit health care improvement organization that has been applying evidence-based quality improvement methods to meet current and future health care challenges for more than 30 years. IHI provides millions of people in health care with methods, tools, and resources to make care better, safer, and more equitable; convenes experts to enable knowledge sharing and peer-learning; and advises health systems and hospitals of all sizes in improving their systems and outcomes at scale. IHI’s mission is to innovate and lead transformational improvement in health and health care worldwide.
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