Institute for Healthcare Improvement Appoints Ronald Wyatt, MD, MHA as Chief Medical Officer to Advance Patient Safety and Health Equity
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) has announced the appointment of Ronald Wyatt, MD, MHA, as its new Chief Medical Officer, creating a leadership role designed to strengthen the organization’s clinical perspective, scientific strategy, and efforts to improve health and healthcare systems worldwide.
Dr. Wyatt brings more than three decades of experience in patient safety, healthcare quality improvement, health equity, diagnostic excellence, and clinical leadership. Throughout his career, he has worked across major healthcare institutions and organizations in the United States and internationally, helping healthcare systems address complex challenges related to patient safety, quality, and equitable access to care.
In his new role, Dr. Wyatt will help shape IHI’s clinical strategy and contribute to the organization’s broader efforts to advance evidence-based improvements across healthcare systems. His appointment is expected to bring together clinical experience, scientific expertise, frontline insight, and a longstanding commitment to addressing inequities that affect patient outcomes.
The appointment follows a competitive executive search and marks the creation of a new senior leadership position within IHI.
“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 Dedicated to Patient Safety and Healthcare Improvement
Dr. Wyatt has built a career focused on improving the safety, quality, and equity of healthcare. His professional experience spans hospitals, national healthcare organizations, government agencies, international health systems, and organizations dedicated to advancing diagnostic and patient safety.
He served as the inaugural Patient Safety Officer at The Joint Commission, where he played a central role in developing approaches to patient safety analysis and improvement. During his time with the organization, he developed sentinel event analysis, led the team responsible for authoring the Patient Safety Systems Chapter, and created the Quick Safety publication.
The publication has become a resource used by healthcare leaders seeking practical information on patient safety risks and improvement strategies. His work at The Joint Commission helped establish a foundation for identifying safety challenges and supporting healthcare organizations in developing more effective approaches to preventing harm.
Dr. Wyatt has also held senior leadership roles across different healthcare environments and geographic regions. His previous positions include Chief Quality Officer at Hamad Medical Corporation in Qatar and Chief Quality Officer at Cook County Health in Chicago, Illinois.
He also served as Medical Director of the Patient Safety Center at the U.S. Defense Health Agency and as Chief Science and Medical Officer at the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine.
These roles have provided Dr. Wyatt with experience working across different healthcare systems and organizational structures. His background includes leadership in clinical quality, patient safety, healthcare improvement, and the development of systems designed to improve outcomes.
Connecting Patient Safety With Health Equity
A central theme of Dr. Wyatt’s career has been the connection between health equity and patient safety. He has argued that unequal access to care, structural barriers, discrimination, and other social factors can directly influence whether patients receive safe and effective healthcare.
His work has emphasized that health inequities should not be treated solely as social or policy issues. Instead, disparities in care and outcomes can also represent fundamental patient safety concerns.
Dr. Wyatt has written and spoken extensively about the relationship between racism, inequity, healthcare quality, and patient outcomes. His professional and personal experiences have helped shape his commitment to addressing the structural factors that can create unequal risks for patients and communities.
He became the first African American Chief Resident at the St. Louis University School of Medicine. Throughout his career, he has continued to focus on dismantling barriers that can affect the quality and safety of healthcare.
“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.”
His appointment as Chief Medical Officer is expected to further strengthen IHI’s focus on integrating equity into healthcare improvement efforts. This includes examining how improvement initiatives affect different patient populations and ensuring that progress in healthcare quality benefits communities broadly.
Extensive Experience in Quality Improvement and Diagnostic Safety
Dr. Wyatt is a board-certified physician and has published extensively in areas including patient safety, health equity, diagnostic excellence, safety culture, and the social determinants of health.
His research and writing have appeared in peer-reviewed publications, as well as in IHI white papers and other healthcare improvement resources.
Diagnostic excellence has been an important part of his work. Delayed, missed, or incorrect diagnoses can have serious consequences for patients, and improving diagnostic processes requires collaboration among clinicians, healthcare organizations, patients, and policymakers.
By bringing together clinical knowledge and systems-level improvement strategies, Dr. Wyatt has focused on identifying the factors that contribute to safety risks and developing approaches to reduce them.
He has also been recognized for his contributions to patient safety. Becker’s Hospital Review has named him among the Top 50 Patient Safety Experts in the United States three times.
In addition, Dr. Wyatt is the founder of Achieving Health Equity LLC, an organization focused on advancing health equity and addressing the systemic factors that contribute to disparities in healthcare.
A Longstanding Relationship With IHI
Dr. Wyatt is not new to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He has been deeply involved in the organization’s work for several years through a variety of leadership and educational roles.
He has served as an IHI Senior Fellow and previously served as co-chair of IHI’s Health Equity Initiative. He has also worked as faculty for the organization’s Leadership for Health Equity Professional Development Program.
In addition, he co-authored IHI’s Achieving Health Equity: A Guide for Health Care Organizations white paper. The guide is designed to help healthcare organizations develop strategies for identifying and addressing inequities in care and outcomes.
His prior work with IHI gives him a strong understanding of the organization’s mission, programs, and approach to healthcare improvement.
In his new role, Dr. Wyatt will build on this longstanding relationship to help advance IHI’s strategic priorities. His responsibilities will include helping ensure that the organization’s work is grounded in scientific excellence and focused on achieving measurable improvements for patients, communities, and health systems.
Addressing New Challenges in Healthcare
Healthcare organizations worldwide are facing increasingly complex challenges. Health systems must manage rising costs, workforce pressures, changing patient needs, technological transformation, and persistent disparities in access and outcomes.
At the same time, healthcare leaders are expected to improve quality and safety while navigating an environment in which traditional approaches may no longer be sufficient.
Dr. Wyatt believes that healthcare improvement must continue to evolve to address these emerging challenges.
“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.”
His comments highlight the importance of developing new approaches to healthcare improvement rather than relying solely on existing models.
While translating established evidence into clinical practice remains an important part of healthcare improvement, emerging challenges may require new research, new methodologies, and new ways of working with patients and communities.
Strengthening IHI’s Clinical Strategy
The creation of the Chief Medical Officer role reflects IHI’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its clinical leadership and scientific direction.
As CMO, Dr. Wyatt is expected to help connect IHI’s improvement science with the realities of frontline healthcare. His experience across hospitals, government organizations, international health systems, and patient safety institutions may provide a broad perspective on the challenges healthcare organizations face.
His role will also include helping ensure that IHI’s strategies are relevant to patients, families, healthcare professionals, and communities.
A key element of healthcare improvement is the ability to connect high-level strategy with real-world implementation. Policies and improvement frameworks must ultimately work within the daily realities of healthcare delivery.
Dr. Wyatt’s experience in clinical and organizational leadership positions him to contribute to this connection. His career has focused on identifying the factors that affect patient safety and developing strategies that can be applied within complex healthcare environments.
Advancing Health and Healthcare Worldwide
IHI works with healthcare organizations, leaders, clinicians, policymakers, and other stakeholders to improve health and healthcare systems. Its work spans quality improvement, patient safety, health equity, leadership, and healthcare transformation.
Dr. Wyatt’s appointment is expected to support the organization’s efforts to expand its impact in these areas.
His experience in health equity may also help IHI continue to strengthen its focus on ensuring that healthcare improvement efforts benefit populations that have historically experienced poorer outcomes or limited access to care.
As healthcare systems increasingly recognize the relationship between equity, safety, quality, and outcomes, the integration of these areas may become increasingly important.
Dr. Wyatt’s background reflects this integrated approach. His work has examined patient safety not only from the perspective of clinical processes but also through the broader lens of social determinants, structural barriers, and unequal access to care.
A New Chapter for IHI’s Leadership
The appointment of Ronald Wyatt as Chief Medical Officer marks a new chapter in IHI’s leadership and clinical strategy.
With more than 30 years of experience in healthcare quality and patient safety, Dr. Wyatt brings extensive expertise to the newly created position. His previous work with major healthcare organizations and his longstanding involvement with IHI provide a strong foundation for his new responsibilities.
As IHI continues working to improve healthcare worldwide, his leadership is expected to contribute to the organization’s efforts to advance patient safety, health equity, diagnostic excellence, and quality improvement.
The healthcare industry continues to face challenges that require both immediate action and long-term innovation. By combining scientific knowledge, clinical experience, improvement science, and a focus on equity, IHI aims to help healthcare organizations develop solutions that can improve outcomes across diverse communities.
Dr. Wyatt’s appointment reinforces the organization’s commitment to ensuring that clinical expertise and patient experience remain central to its work.
His leadership will focus on helping IHI move beyond identifying problems and translating existing knowledge into practice. The broader goal will be to help generate new insights, develop innovative solutions, and support healthcare systems as they address challenges that may not yet have clear answers.
With Dr. Wyatt joining its senior leadership team, IHI is strengthening its ability to connect patient safety, health equity, clinical science, and healthcare improvement. His appointment is expected to support the organization’s mission of helping create safer, more equitable, and higher-quality healthcare for patients, families, and communities worldwide.
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