History
The National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality (NICHQ) is the vision of a team of children’s healthcare leaders who, in their work as pediatricians and public health professionals, saw the need for improving the systems responsible for the delivery of children’s healthcare.
This vision came to light in 1999, when NICHQ was formed—with start-up funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation—as a program of the Boston-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), the nation’s premier organization working to improve the quality of healthcare in the US and around the world. Led since its founding by Dr. Charles Homer, NICHQ incorporated as an independent not-for-profit organization in July 2002.
Since its inception, NICHQ has been effective in both raising awareness about the potential for dramatic improvement in children’s healthcare and helping change actual system performance. In the past 10 years, NICHQ has reached thousands of pediatric and family practices and worked with city, state, and federal leaders to improve the quality of care for millions of children across a broad spectrum of geographic and socioeconomic boundaries.
A national organization with its home office in Boston, NICHQ has grown to a 25-person team, led by Dr. Homer and working to fulfill the original vision—for every child to receive the healthcare they need.
