Marty Hatlie is a patient safety advocate with a strong interest in the roles patients and family members play as co-creators of patient safety solutions.  He currently serves as Director for Policy & Advocacy for Patient for Patient Safety US (PFPS US), the US branch of the international Patients for Patient Safety network. He is also a principal of the Healthcare Patient Partnership Institute, which works with hospitals and health systems to implement and grow Patient and Family Advisory Councils for Quality and Safety®.

Hatlie is a former litigator with a background in civil rights and medical liability defense work early in his career. In the 1980s and early 90s, Hatlie was a lobbyist for the American Medical Association as lead strategist for its nationwide liability reform campaigns. He developed the AMA/Specialty Society Medical Liability Project, which engaged organized medicine in advocating for litigation alternatives that fairly compensated patients and contributed to continuous learning from medical error. In 1997, Hatlie coordinated the AMA’s launch of the National Patient Safety Foundation and served as its founding Executive Director from 1997—99.

He has since been active in U. S. federal health system transformation work as a consultant on multiple research and demonstration projects funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).  He served on the Technical Expert Panel that produced the CMS Patient Safety Structural Measure in 2023. He was Co-PI on the AHRQ project that drafted the Guide to Improving Patient Safety in Primary Care Settings by Engaging Patients and Families (2018) and a consultant in the development of the AHRQ CANDOR (Communication and Optimal Resolution) Toolkit (2016). He is currently on the PFPS US leadership team developing Project PIVOT (Patients Involved in developing Outcomes Together), a PCORI-funded initiative focused on prioritizing what patients want to report on experiences of patient safety events, diagnostic safety lapses, and bias/discrimination.

Hatlie currently serves on the Boards of Directors for PFPS US, Certified Professional in Patient Safety, and Alliance for Integrated Medication Management. He is co-chair of the Leapfrog Group’s Patient and Family Engagement Expert Panel, and also serves on advisory boards for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the Joint Commission, the World Health Organization’s Patients for Patient Safety Programme, and the Georgetown University Executive Master’s Program in Clinical Quality, Safety, and Leadership

Previously, Hatlie served on the Boards of Directors of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, the Leapfrog Group, the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, Smart Patients, Loyola MacNeal Hospital, the Physician Insurers Association of America, and the American Tort Reform Association.

Hatlie is a graduate of Carleton College (philosophy) and Boston College Law School.  He is a member of the Massachusetts and Illinois Bar Associations.