Letter from the President and CEO of ECRI
At ECRI, we are at a thrilling inflection point. I've never been more energized about where we are headed as an organization and our impact on healthcare.
As previously announced, we made a decision that transformed our organization: we carved out our spend management and recall management solutions to a new, independent company called Staritas. Those solutions were highly valued and award-winning. For decades, ECRI helped health systems build resilient supply chains and save millions of dollars in the process. That work mattered, and continues to matter, but it wasn't directly tied to our core mission to reduce preventable harm in healthcare and advance safe, evidence-based medicine.
Now, ECRI is wholly, unapologetically focused on patient safety and care quality. Every dataset we analyze, every recommendation we publish, every partner we serve, all of it is oriented toward answering a single question: how can a healthcare system reliably and sustainably reduce preventable harm and provide safe, evidence-based care? That drives everything we do. It’s no small feat, but our team has risen to the challenge.
ECRI’s Strategy Summit convening global personnel, April 2026
ECRI personnel from around the world came together recently and rallied around the mission in a way that genuinely moved me. We recommitted to our vision and celebrated wins that reflect the impact we’ve made as an organization.
Our research continues to gain national recognition. We’ve partnered with hospitals and healthcare providers to reduce safety incidents. Our Patient Safety Organization grew to serve all fifty states. Across the U.S., 32 million Americans a year turn to federally qualified health centers and free clinics that use our risk reduction programs. We’ve repeatedly delivered evidence-based guidance to leaders on Capitol Hill. When long-standing science has been called into question, we do not stay silent, publishing evidence, clearly and without equivocation, because that is what this moment demands. We have sent volunteer teams into vulnerable communities to help bring medical care where it’s needed most.
Our responsibility to address health disparities is deeply personal for me. Throughout my career, I have served communities facing grave health inequities – from the Australian Outback to the poorest county in the U.S. to rural towns in Africa. Where I live in Panama, many families don’t have access to modern medicine, which inspired me to volunteer with Floating Doctors. In all these places, I have seen preventable harm impact lives and even cut them short. That experience does not leave you. It shapes every decision I make. It’s a stark reminder of the urgency of ECRI’s mission to make healthcare safer and more equitable.
Bevin O’Neil, ECRI Chief Transformation Officer; Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, ECRI President and CEO; Dheerendra Kommala, MD, ECRI Chief Medical Officer
In leading ECRI’s evolution over the past few years, I along with my leadership team charted an intentional course. We deepened our data insights by growing the nation’s largest dataset tracking patient harm events. We then acquired the leading organizations in medication safety and cultural transformation for the workforce – ISMP and the Just Culture Company – specifically so we’d have all the necessary ingredients to solve the problems causing the most patient harm. The recent Staritas carveout was the next step in that evolution, equipping us to focus and invest, at an unprecedented level, in the expert teams, data assets, and advanced capabilities that healthcare organizations need to provide safer and better care.
We’re proud of what we’ve achieved so far, but frankly, we can – and must – do much more. What's ahead for ECRI and the healthcare partners we serve is consequential. We are elevating our capabilities in AI and predictive data analytics. We are building a platform that I believe will revolutionize how healthcare organizations identify and prevent harm before a threat reaches the patient. This summer, we’ll finish moving into our newly renovated medical device evaluation lab that will expand our capacity for hands-on testing that has been a hallmark of ECRI’s reputation for decades.
The industry problems we are working to solve – preventable harm, clinician burnout, health inequities, and the erosion of trust in evidence-based medicine – are not new. But they are escalating. And they demand organizations with the courage and clarity to confront them directly, without distraction and without compromise. That is who we are. That is who we are choosing, deliberately and with full commitment, to become even more.
David Marx, J.D., President of The Just Culture Company; Rita K. Jew, PharmD, MBA, BCPPS, FASHP, President of ISMP; Scott Lucas, PhD, ECRI Vice President of Devices, Therapeutics, and Technology; Shannon Kooker (Davila), MSN, RN, CPPS, CPHQ, CIC, FAPIC, ECRI Vice President of Clinical Excellence and Patient Safety; Polly (Patrice) Tremoulet, PhD, ECRI Director of Human Factors Engineering
I am grateful for every partner, client, and team member who is part of this exciting new era. The work ahead is hard. But nothing this important is easy.
By ECRI President and CEO, Dr. Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD