Charles Safran

Charles Safran (born February 3, 1951) is an American-born physician, biomedical informatician, and professor, who is known for his work regarding the use of health information technology (HIT) to improve the delivery and quality of healthcare, in particular clinical information systems.

Early life and education
Safran was born in New York City and grew up in Metuchen, New Jersey. In the fall of 1968, during his senior year in at the Taft School in Watertown Connecticut, Safran's trajectory toward a career in biomedical informatics took an unexpected turn. The woodworking shop at his school was transformed into a computer room, and John Kemeny, co-developer of the BASIC programming language, inaugurated the new PDP8/S. Safran, intrigued by the possibilities, wrote a program to play tic-tac-toe based on a magic square, igniting his passion for programming, and redirecting his career path.

Safran earned his Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and Masters of Science degree in mathematical logic at Tufts University in 1974. He received an M.D. from Tufts University in 1980. His postdoctoral training included an internship and residency in internal medicine at the Boston Veterans Administration Medical Center from 1980 to 1983.

Career
Early in his professional journey, he was a programmer for the Sponsored Research Staff at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science from 1973 to 1976 with G. Anthony Gorry. His foundational experience using decision theory to help physicians select diagnostic tests and therapies for patients with Hodgkin’s disease resulted in his first publication Decision analysis to evaluate lymphangiography in the management of patients with Hodgkin’s disease.

Safran was recruited to Harvard Medical School to work with Drs. Warner V. Slack and Howard L. Bleich, where he contributed to the institution's clinical computing systems, medical informatics education and research programs. He is the professor of medicine since 2015.

He pioneered and deployed large institutional integrated clinical computing systems, electronic health records, and clinical decision support systems aimed at assisting clinicians in patient care. At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, he served as a physician and former chief of the Division of Clinical Informatics, influencing medical informatics education and research while directing research programs and leading clinical computing fellowships.

In 2004, Safran was elected president of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and promoted a national health information infrastructure, collaborating with government entities and commercial partners to develop healthcare architectures and technology solutions. His work with the CDC has integrated informatics into the national public health infrastructure, advancing the interoperability and effectiveness of healthcare systems.

Outside academia, Safran's impact has been equally significant. From 2007 to 2010, he served as a senior scientist at the National Center for Public Health Informatics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, contributing his expertise to public health initiatives. Additionally, Safran served as the CEO of Clinical Support Technology from 1999 to 2004, where he led the development of the CST CareLink architecture, integrating various components to support telehealth, including communication, education, knowledge exploration, community collaboration, and data integration. The platform's applications ranged from connecting parents to babies in the NICU to supporting pediatric cancer patients at home. The platform was used for connecting parents to babies in the NICU

He has over 200 peer-reviewed publications with over 10,000 citations and speaks to national and international audiences. He was the Scientific Program Committee Chair of MedInfo 98, which was the 9th World Congress on Medical Informatics held in Seoul, South Korea, from August 14-21, 1998. In 2003 as VP of IMIA, he organized the HELINA (HELth INformatics in Africa) Conference focused on the use of information and communication technology in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa. In 2012, he chaired the European Summit on Trustworthy Reuse of Health Data.

Creation of electronic health records (EHR)
Safran developed the Online Medical Record (OMR), which was implemented in the 1980's at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and finally replaced in 2024.

Public health alert systems
Safran contributed to the development of national biosurveillance networks and modernizing public health alert systems.

Educational initiatives
Safran established Clinical Informatics as a recognized medical subspecialty.

Awards and honors

 * AMIA Leadership Award, American Medical Informatics Association, 2001
 * AMIA Leadership Award, American Medical Informatics Association, 2006
 * AMIA Leadership Award, American Medical Informatics Association, 2015
 * AMIA Don Eugene Detmer Award for Health Policy Contributions in Informatics, American Medical Informatics Association, 2013
 * Morris F. Collen Award of Excellence, American Medical Informatics Association, 2014