Robert M. Wachter

Robert M. Wachter is a prominent academic physician on the faculty of UCSF, where he is interim chairman of the Department of Medicine and chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine. In 2015, Modern Healthcare magazine named him the most influential physician-executive in the United States.

He is generally regarded as an academic leader of the hospitalist movement. Hospitalists are internists and other physicians who specialize in the care of hospitalized patients. He and his colleague, Lee Goldman, are known for coining the term "hospitalist" in a 1996 New England Journal of Medicine article. He is past-president of the Society of Hospital Medicine and past-chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine.

He is also a noted expert in the field of medical errors and patient safety. He edits the U.S. government's two leading patient safety websites, AHRQ WebM&M and AHRQ Patient Safety Network; together these sites receive nearly one million visits each year. He has also written two books on safety, Internal Bleeding and Understanding Patient Safety. In 2004, he won the John M. Eisenberg award, the nation's top honor in patient safety.

His new book, The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine's Computer Age, was published by McGraw-Hill in April, 2015. It reached the New York Times science bestseller list in May, 2015.

Books

• "The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine's Computer Age" (2015).
• "Understanding Patient Safety, 2nd Edition" (2012).
• Internal Bleeding: The Truth Behind America's Terrifying Epidemic of Medical Mistakes (2005).

External links

• "Robert Wachter Discusses His New Book, The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine's Computer Age"
• "Why Health Care Tech is Still So Bad" By Robert M. Wachter, The New York Times, 2015.
• "Holding Doctors Accountable For Medical Errors" By Pauline Chen The New York Times, 2009.
• "The Emerging Role of “Hospitalists” in the American Health Care System" By Robert M. Wachter, MD and Lee Goldman, MD, 1996.
• "Balancing 'No Blame' with Accountability in Patient Safety" By Robert M. Wachter, MD and Peter J. Pronovost, MD, PhD, 2009.
• "Wachter's World" Robert Wachter's popular blog, it covers healthcare policy, hospitalists and hospital care, information technology, and more.