Robert M. Wachter, MD is Professor and Associate Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where he holds the Lynne and Marc Benioff Endowed Chair in Hospital Medicine. He is also Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine, and Chief of the Medical Service at UCSF Medical Center. He has published 200 articles and 6 books in the fields of quality, safety, and health policy.  He coined the term “hospitalist” in a 1996 New England Journal of Medicine article, is a past-president of the Society of Hospital Medicine, and edits the field’s first textbook (Hospital Medicine). He is generally considered the academic leader of the hospitalist movement, the fastest growing specialty in the history of modern medicine.

He is also a national leader in the fields of patient safety and healthcare quality. He is editor of AHRQ WebM&M, a case-based patient safety journal on the Web, and AHRQ Patient Safety Network, the leading federal patient safety portal.  Together, the sites receive nearly two million unique visits each year.  His book on medical errors, Internal Bleeding: The Truth Behind America’s Terrifying Epidemic of Medical Mistakes, now in its fourth printing, received glowing reviews and has been a national bestseller. His new book, Understanding Patient Safety, is a leading textbook in the field. Dr. Wachter has discussed patient safety and healthcare quality on Good Morning America, PBS’s NewsHour, Imus in the Morning, CNN’s American Morning, CBS Sunday Morning, and The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, and been quoted in virtually every major newspaper and newsmagazine. He received one of the 2004 John M. Eisenberg Awards, the nation’s top honor in patient safety and quality. In 2008, Modern Physician magazine named him the 19th most influential physician-executive in the United States, the highest ranking academic physician on the list. He is on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Internal Medicine, and serves on the healthcare advisory boards of several companies, including Google.