David W. Bates, M.D., M.Sc.

Medical Director

Clinical and Quality Analysis, Mass General Brigham

Professor of Medicine

Harvard Medical School

Professor of Health Policy and Management

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Director

Center for Patient Safety Research, Brigham and Women's Hospital

Education:
B.S. (1979) – Stanford University, California
M.D. (1983) – Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Maryland
M.Sc. (1990) – Harvard School of Public Health, Massachusetts (Health Policy & Management)

Bio:

David W. Bates, M.D, M.Sc., is the Medical Director of Clinical and Quality Analysis at Mass General Brigham and is a Senior Physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). In June 2023, he stepped down as Chief of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care at BWH after 25 years. Dr. Bates is also a Professor at both Harvard Medical School and at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; he also directs the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice at BWH.

Dr. Bates is an internationally renowned expert in patient safety, using information technology to improve care, quality-of-care, cost-effectiveness, and outcomes assessment. He has served as president of the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) and is the editor of the Journal of Patient Safety.

Dr. Bates is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the Institute of Medicine, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and the American College of Medical Informatics, and was Chairman of the Board of the American Medical Informatics Association. He has published more than 1,200 peer-reviewed papers which have been cited over 155,000 times; he is among the 400 most cited of all biomedical researchers.