Lucian L. Leape, MD
Adjunct Professor of Health Policy
Department of Health Policy and Management
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Chairman
Lucian L. Leape Institute
National Patient Safety Foundation
Biography
Lucian Leape is an Adjunct Professor of Health Policy in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard in 1988, he was Professor of Surgery and Chief of Pediatric Surgery at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is a graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Leape is internationally recognized as a leader of the patient safety movement, starting with the publication in JAMA of his seminal article, Error in Medicine, in 1994. His subsequent research demonstrated the success of the application of systems theory to the prevention of adverse drug events. He has led efforts to improve disclosure and apology after adverse events, reform medical education, and to improve assessment of physician performance. He has published over 140 papers on patient safety and quality of care.
Dr. Leape was a member of the Institute of Medicine committee that published “To Err is Human” in 1999 and “Crossing the Quality Chasm” in 2001. In 2006, Modern Healthcare named him as one of the 30 people who have had the most impact on healthcare in the past 30 years. In 2007, the National Patient Safety Foundation established the Lucian Leape Institute to further strategic thinking in patient safety.