ECRI Institute announced today that its founder and president emeritus, Dr. Joel Nobel, has passed away. He was 79 years old.

Nobel founded the institute in 1968 with the goal to improve the safety, quality and cost-effectiveness of health care. He wore many hats — physician, inventor and researcher — and much of his work led to many patient safety and technology improvements.

He created ECRI's overall policies and programs including its health care technology assessment, product evaluation, risk management and technical assistance for the health community.
He developed the concepts and operating plans for many of ECRI's publications including Health Devices, Health Devices Alerts, the Health Devices Sourcebook and the Healthcare Product Comparison System.

He was also the principal investigator for a variety of federal, state and foundation-funded research and demonstration projects, and published over 170 scientific papers and book chapters pertaining to emergency medical services, health care technology, medical device safety, risk management, biomedical engineering and hospital design.

"While there is no way for all of us to truly know just how much Joel contributed to the world, we all know that he made a huge difference. Quite simply, the world is a better place because of Joel," Anthony J. Montagnolo, chief operating officer of ECRI, said in a statement.

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