More than 30 years ago, W. Edwards Deming was hailed in the U.S. workplace as a potential savior of automakers. Years of Japanese automakers’ supremacy in terms of quality had resulted in a steady gain of market share for manufacturers such as Honda and Toyota. Automotive manufacturers in the U.S. were in a period of crisis; they realized that the way they operated had to change if they were to remain competitive.

Health care in the United States is now in a similar state. Instead of a single person bringing the message of change, it’s a nonprofit think tank, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The IHI was founded in 1991 to address the growing concern regarding the quality of health care.

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