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 nation's first 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 and is past president of the Society of Hospital Medicine. He is generally regarded as 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, and AHRQ Patient Safety Network, the leading federal patient safety portal. Together, the sites receive over two million visitors a year. He has written two bestselling books on patient safety: Internal Bleeding and Understanding Patient Safety. Dr. Wachter has discussed patient safety and quality on Good Morning America, PBS's NewsHour, CBS Sunday Morning, and NPR's Talk of the Nation, 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. Modern Physician has named him one of the 30 most influential physician-executives in the US (he has been the highest rank academic physician for the past three years), and in 2010 Modern Healthcare named him one of the 100 most powerful people in healthcare. He is Chair-elect of the Board of the American Board of Internal Medicine and has served on the healthcare advisory boards of several companies, including Google.
The Quality, Safety, and Value Movements: Why Transforming the Delivery of Healthcare is No Longer Elective
In this keynote, Dr. Wachter reviews the brief history of the quality and safety movements, the new push for "value" (quality + safety + patient satisfaction divided by cost), and how all of these levers (accreditation, regulation, transparency, payment changes) are combining to create unprecedented pressure on caregivers and delivery organizations to change their ways of doing business. Rather than being depressed, audiences leave with a deep understanding of healthcare's new landscape, and a roadmap (and some optimism) for success in this new world.
What We Need to Know and Do to Cure our Epidemic of Medical Mistakes
A case-based, dramatic keynote that describes a new way to think about medical errors. It is the "Cliff Notes" version of his bestselling books, Internal Bleeding and Understanding Patient Safety. This program is suitable for novices, experts, and even lay audiences.
Patient Safety a Decade after the IOM Report on Medical Errors: Unmistakable Progress and Troubling Gaps
A more policy-oriented keynote than #1; more appropriate for advanced audiences (ie, leaders in quality and safety). This program chronicles what is and is not working (regulation, IT, reporting, accountability, etc.) in our efforts to prevent medical mistakes.
Use Your Words: Understanding the New Vocabulary of Healthcare Reform
Even though health reform passed in 2010, it will not have a major influence on the payment and delivery system for several years. Yet the 2009-10 debate introduced many new terms that will influence the debate regarding more comprehensive reform plans: "comparative effectiveness", "bundling", "accountable care organizations", "Death Panels".... In this keynote, Dr. Wachter helps audiences make sense of these concepts, and, more importantly, what they mean in the larger context of our delivery system.
Consequences (Expected and Otherwise) of the Quality and Information Technology Revolutions
In this keynote, Dr. Wachter takes a slightly contrarian view of these trends, two of the most dominant issues facing health care today. Most speeches on these issues are dry and pat; clinical audiences leave this talk thinking about these topics in a new, fresh way.
The Hospitalist Movement 15 Years Later: Key Issues for the Second Decade
Dr. Wachter coined the term "hospitalist" in the NEJM in 1996. In this keynote, he covers the forces driving the growth of the field, the fastest growing specialty in the history of medicine, and what's to come.
Other Suggested Keynotes
In addition to the above keynotes, Dr. Wachter can also speak on a variety of more specific topics in safety and quality (as keynote or plenary, or as a breakout), including:
• "Quality Measurement, Reporting and P4P: Where Are We Going?"
• "Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch: The Role of Culture in Patient Safety"
• "Is There a Business Case to Invest in Quality and Patient Safety?"
• "Why Diagnostic Errors Get No Respect... And What Can Be Done To Fix That"
No additional materials are available for this speaker.
