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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. Discover more in this timeline of significant milestones compiled from across the university and IHPI’s local partners.
1817
The Ann Arbor University of Michigan campus of the 1850s, captured on canvas by Jasper Cropsey, a painter of the Hudson River School. The landscape was commissioned by the Board of Regents. Image credit: Jasper Cropsey Visual Materials Collection, Bentley Historical Library
The origins of the University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is founded in Detroit in 1817. In 1837, the Board of Regents held its first meeting in Ann Arbor and formally accepted the proposal by the town to locate the university there. The first college-level classes were held at U-M in Ann Arbor in 1841.
1850
U-M Medical School opens
The University of Michigan Medical School opened its doors in 1850 and became U-M’s first professional school.
1875
The class of 1885 in the operating dental clinic. From the collections of the Sindecuse Museum of Dentistry, School of Dentistry, University of Michigan (SMD652.114b).
Beginnings of the U-M School of Dentistry
The U-M School of Dentistry is founded as the College of Dental Surgery, making U-M the first state university in the world and the second university in the U.S. to offer education in dentistry. The college was renamed the School of Dentistry in 1927.
1876
First Pharmacognosy Laboratory at U-M, circa 1880s. Photo credit: Bentley Historical Library.
Origins of the U-M College of Pharmacy
The U-M School of Pharmacy was established as the School of Pharmacy, becoming the first pharmacy school in a public university. It became a college in 1915.
1881
Teaching Sanitary Science
The teaching of sanitary science (part of the origins of the modern public health field) begins at U-M.
1891
Elba L. Morse (back row, left), maternity nursing instructor, with U of M Training School nursing students, 1915. Morse devoted more than 50 years to the care of women and children and was inducted (posthumously) into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in October 1990 - the first nurse to receive this honor. Back row, L-R, Elba Morse, Madge Kniffen, Dr. Loomis, Pearl Dowe, Belle Ellis; front row, L-R, Hazel McFayden and Olive Sutherland. Photo credit: Nursing History Society of the University of Michigan.
Training School for Nurses established
The U-M Training School for Nurses is established in response to a growing need for professional nurses, organized and operated under the auspices of the Medical School. It was reorganized as the U-M Hospital Training School in 1912.
1897
U-M awards its first MS in Hygiene
The university awarded this degree to Edna D. Day, who went on to lead the University of Missouri’s Department of Home Economics.
1911
Degrees in Public Health
The curricula for master’s and doctoral degrees in public health are approved by the Board of Regents.
1918
BS in Public Health Nursing
Program leading to the BS in Public Health Nursing is established.
1920
Public Health moves to new graduate division
The Board of Regents highlights the interdisciplinary nature of public health by moving programs from the Medical School to a new Graduate School Division of Hygiene.
1934
“The Social and Economic Aspects of Public Health and Medicine”
“The Social and Economic Aspects of Public Health and Medicine,” believed to be first course on medical care organization and financing offered at a U.S. university, is taught at U-M.
1939
Photo credit: U-M School of Public Health
Sinai helps develop voluntary health insurance plan
U-M’s Nathan Sinai, a professor of Hygiene and Public Health, develops a voluntary health insurance plan with the Michigan State Medical Society that later becomes a prototype for Blue Shield.
1941
U-M’s nursing program officially recognized
U-M’s nursing program is officially recognized as an independent university teaching unit and the name of the school changes to the University of Michigan School of Nursing.
1941
U-M School of Public Health Established
The U-M School of Public Health (SPH) is established by the Board of Regents after 50 years of the teaching of disease prevention and health promotion at the university.
1944
“Public Health Economics and Medical Care Abstracts” published
Public Health Economics and Medical Care Abstracts [which eventually became Medical Care Review (1967) and subsequently Medical Care Research and Review (1995)] is published by the U-M Bureau of Public Health Economics in the School of Public Health [see next].
1945
Regents approve Bureau of Public Health Economics
The Board of Regents approves the Bureau of Public Health Economics within the School of Public Health. Its Medical Care Reference Collection becomes the nation’s primary source of archival information on community aspects of medical care.
1949
An ISR survey researcher conducting an interview, 1949. Photo credit: University of Michigan News and Information Services Collection, Bentley Historical Library
Institute for Social Research established at U-M
The Institute for Social Research (ISR), among the world’s largest and oldest academic survey research organizations, and a leader in the development and application of social science methods and education, is established at U-M. ISR’s portfolio of work includes a breadth of research examining the relationships between human health, behavior, and social factors. Rensis Likert, an organizational psychologist and developer of the Likert Scale, served as ISR’s first director (pictured at left with Angus Campbell, ISR’s co-founder and second director).
ISR co-founder Rensis Likert, an organizational psychologist and developer of the Likert Scale, becomes ISR’s first director (pictured at left with Angus Campbell, ISR’s co-founder and second director).
1951
Photo credit: Bentley Historical Library
The origins of the School of Social Work
The U-M School of Social Work, preceded by the U-M Institute of Social Work, is established.
1955
Children participating in the field trials of the Salk vaccine were dubbed "polio pioneers." Photo credit: Bentley Historical Library/U-M Alumni Association Records
Thomas Francis Jr. concludes field trials of Salk polio vaccine
SPH Professor Thomas Francis Jr. concludes the two-year national field trials of the Salk polio vaccine, and on April 12 announces to the world that the vaccine developed by his former student Jonas Salk is “safe, effective, and potent.”
1956
Norman Hayner, John Napier, Benjamin Johnson, Millicent Higgins, and Fred Epstein outside the Tecumseh Community Health Study office. Photo credit: Cardiovascular Disease History Archive, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota
Tecumseh Community Health Study launches
The Tecumseh Community Health Study begins through the efforts of SPH and other U-M faculty, focusing on behavioral, environmental, and family factors associated with cardiovascular disease and other chronic conditions. The study focused on the entire community of Tecumseh, Michigan, rather than a representative sample. The investigators were able to quantify the role of a number of factors involved in the development of coronary heart disease.
1960
Image: Polio clinic sponsored by the Urban League of Greater Muskegon. Photo credit: Bentley Historical Library / Urban League of Greater Michigan Records.
The Formative Years
1960–1985
The 1960s saw the beginnings of significant changes in the American healthcare system. The period was marked by the rapid expansion of social programs, including the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, and the concomitant blossoming of social sciences and federal support for this research. HSR came into greater prominence as a field over the next 50 years, helped by various shifts in healthcare financing that incentivized interdisciplinary research on how healthcare was organized, delivered, and paid for.
1961
Axelrod expands SPH program in Medical Care Organization
SPH Professor S.J. “Sy” Axelrod expands the SPH program in Medical Care Organization, which soon takes on a central role in educating administrators for the Social Security Administration, established by Congress in 1965.
1964
Photo of Ron Lippitt, Flloyd Mann and colleagues. From ISR history http://home.isr.umich.edu/about/history/timeline/
CRUSK begins at ISR
The Center for Research on the Utilization of Scientific Knowledge (CRUSK) is established at ISR; undertakes a variety of HSR and other research until 1985, when its work was largely absorbed into ISR’s three other research centers.
1966
Bentley Historical Library
Donabedian publishes “Evaluating the Quality of Medical Care”
Avedis Donabedian’s landmark article “Evaluating the Quality of Medical Care” is published in the Milbank Quarterly, establishing the widely used structure-process-outcome framework. The papers were commissioned by NIH’s Health Services Research Study Section from carefully selected authors as a means of defining the scope, methods, and standards of the field.
1968
ISR Launches Panel Study of Income Dynamics
ISR launches the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), a national study of socioeconomic factors and health that has led to key inter-generational analyses and a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of poverty.
1969
Mott Hospital opens its doors. Mott was the U-M’s first separate children’s hospital and is now among the nation’s leading pediatric health care centers.
1973
Future Directions in Health Services Research Conference
U-M hosts conference on “Future Directions in Health Services Research,” organized by the newly formed Health Services Research Group, a cross-campus organization of health services researchers.
1974
HSR group hosts second conference
The U-M HSR Group holds its second conference, which discussed developing a proposal for a health services research center.
1975
Monitoring the Future Study begins
The Monitoring the Future study, which annually surveys approximately 50,000 American young people on behaviors, attitudes, and values, begins under ISR.
1976
U-M establishes Health Services Research Center
U-M establishes the Health Services Research Center, located within the Office of the Vice President for Research, after receiving one of five original awards from the National Center for Health Services Research (a predecessor of the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality). U-M’s center continued through 1979.
1984
Establishment of U-M Center for Nursing Research
The U-M Center for Nursing Research is established and nursing research becomes central to the mission of the School of Nursing.
1985
Photo: U-M RWJF Clinical Scholars and program faculty, 2009. Credit: RWJF Clinical Scholars Program.
Health Services Research Comes of Age
1986-2010
Interdisciplinary collaborations flourish in health services research, as investigators organize themselves and develop new partnerships around pressing questions related to healthcare quality, costs, access, and equity. Beginning in the 1990s, U-M’s own health system developed and implemented innovative health programs with high intensity medical and disease management (first used in pilot insurance products with Ford and General Motors—Partnership Health and ActiveCare), and many of these are still used in UMHS initiatives.
1986
U-M creates M-CARE
In response to the need to contain medical costs, U-M establishes M-CARE, becoming the second university in the U.S. to create its own managed care program. M-CARE also reviewed, facilitated, and supported clinical and health services research activities and provided a rich source of healthcare data for analysis. It was acquired by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan in 2006.
1989
U-M School of Public Health, Professor Kenneth Warner
Warner’s work in tobacco and health
SPH Professor Kenneth Warner serves as senior scientific editor of the 25th anniversary Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health. His Congressional testimony in 1985 helped solidify federal taxation as a smoking disincentive.
1992
Health and Retirement Study begins
The Health and Retirement Study begins under the auspices of ISR. It has grown to become the largest and most representative longitudinal panel study of Americans over the age of 50.
1992
SMITREC established
The Serious Mental Illness Treatment Resource and Evaluation Center (SMITREC) is established at the Ann Arbor VA in partnership with the Department of Psychiatry. SMITREC is now co-located with CCMR.
1993
Photo credit: U-M School of Public Health
Monto conducts major flu vaccine study
SPH Professor Arnold Monto conducts a major study of the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine in the elderly, the findings from which help convince Medicare policymakers to make the flu vaccine a covered benefit.
1993
U-M KECC formed
The U-M Kidney Epidemiology and Cost Center (KECC), a collaboration of the School of Public Health and the Medical School, is formed with the awarding of the United States Renal Data System contract to the University of Michigan.
1994
Members of U-M RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research cohorts 17 & 18 and faculty.
First Cohort of Health Policy Research Scholars
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research program admits its first cohort at U-M.
1995
1995
VA Health Services Research and Development Center established
The Ann Arbor VA Health Services Research & Development Center of Excellence, a future IHPI local partner, is established; it is now the Center for Clinical Management Research (CCMR).
1996
CHCR established
The Center for Health Communications Research (CHCR) is established at U-M.
1997
Arbor Research Collaborative for Health is founded
Arbor Research Collaborative for Health, a future IHPI local partner, was founded by U-M researchers as the University Renal Research and Education Association (URREA); it was renamed in 2006 to better reflect the breadth of its efforts to improve patient care and support the development of sound public healthcare policies.
1997
Establishment of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and Child Development Supplement.
1997
Origins of the U-M Injury Prevention Center
The U-M Injury Prevention Center had its origins as the Injury Research Center (founded within the Department of Emergency Medicine by Ron Maio), which in 2010 merged with the Center for Injury Prevention among Youth (founded by Jean Shope in 2008). The Injury Prevention Center was designated a CDC-funded Injury Control Research Center in 2012.
1997
Launch of first Collaborative Quality Initiative
A group of five hospitals in Michigan – led by U-M cardiologists and supported by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation and Blue Care Network – launches the Blue Cross Blue Shield Cardiovascular Consortium-Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (BMC2-PCI), an initiative to study variation in angioplasty. This first Collaborative Quality Initiative (CQI) paved the way for more than 20 other BCBSM initiatives, most of them led by U-M medical faculty, to collect, analyze, and share data to improve healthcare processes and outcomes across some of the most common and costly areas of healthcare in Michigan.
1998
CHEAR Unit established
The Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) Unit is established within the Department of Pediatrics. CHEAR has since grown to include formal representation from 10 U-M schools and colleges, and informal/collaborative links with many other schools and departments.
1998
The Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) Unit is established by Gary L. Freed, M.D., M.P.H. In 1998, Dr. Freed was recruited from UNC—Chapel Hill to lead the Division of General Pediatrics at U-M. Upon his arrival, he founded the CHEAR Unit, designed as a multidisciplinary, cross-campus research initiative focusing on child and family health, healthcare utilization, and health policy.
2003
First Health & Society Scholars cohort
The first cohort begins the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars program at U-M.
2005
V-BID Center launches
The Center for Value-Based Insurance Design (V-BID), jointly run by SPH and the Medical School, is established at U-M.
2005
Master’s of Science in Health and Health Care Research program established
The Master’s of Science in Health and Health Care Research program is established through Rackham Graduate School, originally designed for scholars who were admitted to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program at U-M (now the IHPI Clinician Scholars Program). Today, IHPI administers the Master’s program.
2006
Altarum Institute
Altarum Institute, a future IHPI local partner which traces its roots to 1946 with a group of U-M engineering professors, sets its singular strategic focus on health and healthcare.
2006
CanSORT established
The Cancer Surveillance & Outcomes Research Team (CanSORT), an interdisciplinary group of investigators at U-M dedicated to studying cancer quality of care, is established.
2007
Healthy Minds Study launches
The Healthy Minds Study (HMS), an annual survey examining mental health service utilization and related issues among undergraduate and graduate students, launches. HMS, based in the School of Public Health with significant involvement from the Institute for Social Research and the U-M Depression Center, has been fielded at more than 125 college and university campuses across the U.S. and internationally, with over 150,000 survey respondents.
2007
CHRT established
The Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation (CHRT), a future IHPI local partner, is established as a nonprofit partnership between U-M and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, created as part of U-M’s sale of its M-CARE health plan.
2007
CHEAR begins National Poll on Children’s Health
The CHEAR Unit establishes the National Poll on Children’s Health, which measures opinions, perceptions, and priorities regarding major healthcare issues and trends for U.S. children and people in their communities.
2008
Dow Division for Urologic Health Services Research
The Dow Division for Urologic Health Services Research is established within the Department of Urology.
2008
Mathematica opens Ann Arbor office
Mathematica Policy Research, a future IHPI local partner, opens its Ann Arbor office.
2009
U-M establishes North Campus Research Complex
U-M acquires the former Pfizer pharmaceutical research campus in Ann Arbor and establishes the North Campus Research Complex (NCRC), IHPI’s future headquarters.
2010
V-BID principles incorporated into ACA
Incorporating research from the U-M Center for Value-Based Insurance Design (V-BID), comprehensive healthcare reform is enacted through the Affordable Care Act, including provisions to authorize health plans nationwide to remove barriers for high-value preventive medical services.
2010
CHOP begins at U-M
The Center for Health Outcomes & Policy (CHOP), a consortium of more than 100 faculty and staff, including clinician scientists, economists, biostatisticians, epidemiologists and other social scientists from the Medical School and School of Public Health, is established at U-M.
2010
CBSSM founded
The Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine (CBSSM), supported by the Dean’s Office at the Medical School, the Department of Internal Medicine, the Department of Psychiatry, and the Ann Arbor Veterans Administration Medical Center (Center for Clinical Management Research), is established at U-M.
2010
CHEPS collaborators involved in a project to improve surgical instrument reprocessing.
CHEPS established
The Center for Healthcare Engineering and Patient Safety (CHEPS) is established within the College of Engineering.
IHPI members gather at the 2014 annual forum.
Looking Toward the Future
2011 and beyond
The early 21st century has seen previously unprecedented challenges and opportunities for the U.S. healthcare system. Recognizing the tremendous potential for providing a common home for the many rich veins of ongoing research, programs, and partnerships at U-M at a most critical time for healthcare in the U.S., the U-M Regents approved the creation of the Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation (IHPI) in 2011. This milestone paralleled the proliferation of large healthcare data sets, a continued focus on healthcare accessibility, safety, affordability, effectiveness, cost-transparency, patient-centered care, and an ever-growing demand for translating health services research to inform public policy.
2011
Master of Health Informatics degree program established
The Master of Health Informatics degree program is established jointly by U-M School of Public Health and School of Information.
2011
IHPI approved by the U-M Board of Regents
The Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation is approved by the Board of Regents. The original cohort of faculty members is 318 individuals.
2011
Dialysis payment reforms implemented
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services implement a new dialysis payment system developed by the U-M Kidney Epidemiology and Cost Center (KECC), which leads to a reduction of approximately $225 million per year in Medicare payments for dialysis.
2012
IHPI opens at North Campus Research Complex
Under the leadership of interim Institute Director Rodney Hayward, IHPI opens its administrative headquarters at the North Campus Research Complex.
2013
Ayanian becomes IHPI director
John Z. Ayanian joins U-M as inaugural Director of IHPI. He split his time between U-M and his previous roles at Harvard University’s Medical School and School of Public Health during this first year.
2013
IHPI names first leadership team
The first IHPI Leadership Team is appointed, with 10 senior faculty members from five U-M schools and colleges. Gail Campanella is appointed as IHPI Managing Director.
2013
CODA established
The Center for Clinical Outcomes Development and Application (CODA), whose mission is to achieve excellence in measurement development, selection, and application to improve clinical health research and care, is established at U-M.
2014
Healthy Michigan Plan evaluation
IHPI begins an evaluation of the Healthy Michigan Plan, the state’s expansion of Medicaid, under a multi-year contract with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
2014
Path of Excellence in Health Policy and Economics launched
The Medical School begins offering medical students the choice to pursue a Path of Excellence in Health Policy and Health Economics, in collaboration with IHPI.
2015
IHPI grows to 465 members
IHPI grows to 465 members with more than $500 million in extramural research funding. The Institute establishes a National Advisory Board of top leaders in healthcare and health services research.
2015
IHPI becomes National Clinician Scholars host site
IHPI becomes one of four host sites of the National Clinician Scholars Program, which trains physicians and nurses together to lead policy-relevant research and mobilize partnerships to improve health and healthcare.
2020
Responding to COVID-19
IHPI researchers and clinicians have played a critical role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, building models to project virus spread and its impact on populations, developing clinical resources and guidelines for the frontlines of care, and creating data registries to better understand treatment outcomes.
The need for innovation and critical evaluation within healthcare and health policy is at one of its greatest in history. IHPI focuses its vision firmly on the future, with its goals and priorities founded on the vibrant work in health services research that has preceded the institute and continues to thrive with new energy and direction.