The Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation (IHPI) is committed to improving the equity, quality, safety, and affordability of healthcare.
IHPI is the nation’s largest university-based community of health services researchers, working together across diverse disciplines to study complex and timely health challenges that refuse simple definition or confinement within a single field of study. IHPI unites 700+ faculty across 15 U-M schools and colleges on the Ann Arbor campus, and several units on the Flint and Dearborn campuses, combining broad expertise to respond to vital questions within healthcare policy and practice.
Our Mission & Vision
The Institute’s mission is to foster innovative, interdisciplinary research to inform policies and practices that advance the equity, quality, safety, and affordability of healthcare, and improve health for individuals, families, and communities.
Our vision: the IHPI community strives to improve health and well-being throughout Michigan, our nation, and the world through collaborative research and learning, rigorous evidence, robust communication, and policy engagement.
Historic Foundations
IHPI’s goals and priorities and its future as an institute are founded upon the substantial accomplishments in health services research and health policy that have distinguished the University of Michigan’s history over the last two centuries.
Long before the term "health services research," came into prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s, U-M was making landmark contributions in healthcare research, education and training, policy, and practice that have had a profound impact on how healthcare is organized, managed, financed, and delivered. Likewise, the majority of U-M’s most significant achievements in advancing this field predate — and profoundly influence — the work of our institute.
In May 2011, the U-M Board of Regents approved the creation of IHPI, recognizing the tremendous potential behind assembling the long-standing health services research and health policy expertise across U-M’s highly-ranked schools and colleges, departments, and centers together into one institute.
In 2012, IHPI established its headquarters at U-M's North Campus Research Complex and moved several hundred researchers and staff to the premises. John Z. Ayanian, M.D., M.P.P., was appointed IHPI’s first director in November 2012. In November 2013, Director Ayanian named the members of the first Leadership Team to help guide IHPI’s goals and priorities.
Learn more about IHPI's history and the long tradition it builds upon through our interactive timeline of important milestones in health services research and policy compiled from across the university and IHPI’s local partners going back to U-M's founding in 1817.
Profiles in Innovation
Our work at the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation (IHPI) addresses the most pressing questions facing healthcare today.
By developing, sharing, and implementing essential evidence and critical insights, we are innovating and shaping healthcare policy and practice. Read more about how our members are working to address the most pressing challenges in healthcare in our news magazine, Profiles in Innovation.
The University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation is a place where intellectual energy and passion for improving public health converge. It’s a vibrant home for health services researchers from multiple disciplines to collaborate and tackle some of the toughest issues in health and healthcare.