OUR VALUES
These operating values are core principles for work in IHI. They guide the behavior and
choices of all staff, faculty, and the Board.
1. Boundarilessness: The people of the IHI compose a single organization, with
common systems, common knowledge, and unconditional teamwork.
2. Speed and Agility: We change our own work and respond as quickly as the
health care systems we serve need us to. Our past work need not ever be our
future work. We are always willing to change.
3. Focus on Subject Matter: Our concerns are health and health care; we are not
wedded to specific methodologies. We remain always open to new approaches
to the continual improvement of care. Results for patients and communities
define our success.
4. Valuing Volunteers: We network together people who have expertise and
knowledge, so that they can teach each other, help others, and improve the work
of IHI. These people are our “Faculty.” Their work is the life-blood of the IHI.
We will make their experience with IHI the most satisfying of their professional
lives.
5. Customer Focus: To achieve our mission, we must serve and delight those
who shape and deliver health care. Their satisfaction – 100% satisfaction – is our
uncompromising aim, in everything that we do.
6. Honesty: To achieve our mission, we must earn and preserve the trust of those
we attempt to help. To do so, we must tell the absolute truth about ourselves
and our work, reporting both failures and successes with equal discipline, and
seeking the views and opinions of people outside our organization.
7. Transparency: We are an institute without walls. Those who work with us, no
matter where or when, should feel informed and welcomed. We work always in
daylight.
8. Orderliness: Disorder is waste, which neither we nor health care can afford. We
will be lean in our work, and continually reduce waste and disorder. We practice
what we teach.
9. Celebration and Thankfulness: Our mission is long, and our work is not easy.
We take time to look back, as well as forward, to thank each other, and to take
pride in what we do.
OUR REPUTATION
Reputation is fragile, and we work consciously to nurture how we are seen by others.
As a result of living our values, we seek to create reliably the following reputation
among those who turn to us for help or who partner with us toward achieving our goals:
“The Institute for Healthcare Improvement is top of mind and a thrilling place to turn to
for help, encouragement, and expertise those of us who are trying to help health care to
change fundamentally for the better. IHI is a continual delight to work with. All the
people there – both in Boston and in dozens of other places -- are intensely focused on
their Mission above all: “to improve the lives of patients, the health of communities, and
the joy of the health care workforce.” The people of IHI are generous, honest,
transparent, and experts in improvement; when the challenge is new to them, they can
track down the other forms expertise they and we need. They stimulate other
organizations and leaders to embrace goals as ambitious as their own. They respond
with breathtaking speed, and they are always respectful, dignified, and affirming. They
share what they know. The meetings they run are the best in the world, and their
website is an unparalleled source of both knowledge and community interactions. They
find ways continually to reduce the costs of our accessing their help. They are one
team, seamless. They practice everything they teach. If health care performed with its
patients the way the IHI performs with its customers and partners, we wouldn’t need the
IHI. Most important, the IHI is getting results. Because of its work, patients throughout
the world are experiencing fewer needless deaths, less pain and suffering, less
unwanted waiting, less helplessness, and less waste, and the health care workforce is
finding new joy and growth in their work.”