In the early 1960s, Joel J. Nobel, a surgeon and inventor, founded the institute[1] after a four-year-old boy died when a resuscitator failed to work.

[2] Designed and patented in 1965 during Nobel's residency at Pennsylvania Hospital, the cart carries instruments for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other medical supplies while functioning as a support litter.

A prototype is in the permanent collection of the Medicine and Science Division of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

[13] The organization was the sole prime contractor for developing and maintaining AHRQ's National Guideline Clearinghouse, a database of clinical practice guidelines, since its inception in 1998 and the National Quality Measures Clearinghouse,[14] a database of evidence-based healthcare quality measures, since its inception in 2001.

Both contracts ended in July 2018 due to the lack of federal funding through AHRQ to continue their operation.