Charlie Lan, D.O.

Dr. Lan serves as the senior medical officer responsible for all clinical care and programs at the main facility in Houston and outpatient clinics.

Dr. Lan received his Doctor of Osteopathy from University of North Texas Health Science Center/Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine at Fort Worth, Texas in 1997.  He completed his Internal Medicine residency at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts in 2000.   

Dr. Lan specializes in Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine and completed his fellowship training at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas in 2005. Dr. Lan also received Master of Science degree in Health Care Quality and Patient Safety at Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois in 2021.  Dr. Lan is currently an associate professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. 

Dr. Lan started his career at Houston VA as a staff physician in 2005 right after his fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine. Shortly after he started, Dr. Lan was promoted to the Medical Director for Respiratory Care, Medical Intensive Care Unit, ACLS, Medical/Neuro Stepdown Unit, Pulmonary Function Lab, and Home Oxygen Clinic.  

At same time, Dr. Lan has assumed the Chair of Critical Care Committee, CPR Committee, and Inpatient Steering Committee.  During this time, Dr. Lan has created Acute Care Mortality Task Force and Sepsis Task Force which led to improvement of ICU and acute care mortality and outcome measures related to sepsis. To ensure an additional safeguard for patient safety, Dr. Lan has implemented Rapid Response Team at Houston VA.

With Dr. Lan’s leadership and his knowledge of clinical operation in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Dr. Lan was promoted to the Associate Chief of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Section at Houston VA.  Dr. Lan managed one of the largest Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep section within VA. Under his leadership, he has assisted in the development of specialized services including tele-sleep medicine, tele-pulmonary rehab, interventional pulmonary, pulmonary hypertension, ILD clinic, and streamlined lung nodule/cancer clinic to serve our veterans. 

Extended our pulmonary services for inter-facility consultation.  Significantly improved MICU mortality, safety measures, quality measures, length of stay, and process measures.  Implemented pulmonary case conference and research conference.

In 2014, Dr. Lan was selected the Deputy Executive of Medicine Care Line at Houston VA.  In this role, Dr. Lan Co-managed over 2000 physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, and technicians for the entire spectrum of inpatient and outpatient medicine and subspecialty practices.  Dr. Lan has spearheaded many process improvement projects that improved many metrics in quality of care and patient safety.  He has also helped in streamline many clinical operations to improve access, efficiency, and productivity.

In 2019 during the pandemic, Dr. Lan headed the COVID-19 Task Force assembled a multidisciplinary team include all stakeholders across the carelines and service lines to ensure Houston VA has the right clinical operation, right processes, and resources to manage COVID-19 pandemic safely and effectively for our Veterans and Staff.

From 2020-2024, Dr. Lan served as the Deputy Chief of Staff at Houston VA. During this time, Dr. Lan continues to work with Care Line and Service line Leaderships during this post-pandemic era to continue to expand our clinical operations and services, improve our clinical process and efficiency, effectively manage our consults, improve access, while continue to improve quality of care and patient safety.