Joyce M. Lee, MD, MPH

Joyce Lee, MD, MPH is a practicing Endocrinologist, Board-Certified Clinical Informaticist, Health Services Researcher, and the Robert P. Kelch, MD Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Michigan Medical School, with a joint appointment in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Dr. Lee holds several institutional leadership roles including Clinical Domain Oversight Officer for Adult and Pediatric Medical Specialties, Associate Chief Medical Information Officer for Pediatric Research, Associate Chair for Health Metrics and Learning Health Systems for the Department of Pediatrics, and Associate Director for Informatics and Clinical Innovation for the Caswell Diabetes Institute. In 2024, Dr. Lee completed the Drexel University Executive Leadership in Health Care program, a branch of the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine® (ELAM) program and in 2025 was part of the inaugural class of the Health Academy Amazon Web Services Tech Fellowship, a national leadership program for healthcare technology leaders.  In 2015 Dr. Lee was a visiting scholar at Google Life Sciences (now Verily), and has served on the Medical Advisory Board of GoodRx.

Dr Lee attended Brown University for her undergraduate education and the University of Pennsylvania for her medical degree, where she was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honors Society. She completed internship and residency in General Pediatrics at the Boston Combined Residency Program (Children's Hospital, Boston and Boston Medical Center). She completed dual training in Pediatric Endocrinology and Pediatric Health Services Research and received a Master in Public Health from the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan.

At the 2016 Pediatric Academic Societies meeting, she was the first recipient of the Paul Kaplowitz, MD, Endowed Lectureship for contributions to quality and cost-effective care in Pediatric Endocrinology, an award sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Pediatric Endocrine Society. In 2016, she was named the Robert P. Kelch, MD Professor of Pediatrics.

Dr. Lee has a diverse training background with skills in operations, continuous improvement, health informatics, and data analytics and data governance. In 2017-2018, Dr. Lee completed training in Advanced Methods Quality Improvement at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center, and in 2018 became an Epic Physician Builder with skills in data analytics and data visualization utilizing the Epic Clarity Database and Tableau business analytic dashboards.

Her translational research focuses on the overarching areas of type 1 diabetes and obesity. She has used a variety of methodologies, including applied clinical research, epidemiologic analyses of nationally representative data, state transition modeling, cost-effectiveness analysis, as well as design and emerging technologies (design ethnography, participatory design, human-centered design, quality improvement science, and digital/social media communications). To date, she has over 160 peer-reviewed publications and has a consistent track record of NIH/foundation funding since 2006. Her major research contributions have included studies evaluating recommended screening guidelines for type 2 diabetes for overweight and obese children, studies evaluating the link between overweight and obesity and timing of puberty and chronic disease risk factors, studies focused on quality measurement and quality of care for overweight and obese children, and research in health outcomes for type 1 diabetes.

Dr. Lee’s work falls under the broader framework of Learning Health Systems (LHS) in which clinical care, quality improvement, and research are intentionally integrated. Dr. Lee’s work currently focuses on:

• Type 1 Diabetes (T1D): Dr. Lee collaborates with the national T1D Exchange Quality Improvement Collaborative to improve the quality of care and health outcomes of individuals with T1D. Areas of interest include the adoption of telemedicine, development and implementation of health IT tools in Epic and Tableau dashboards to support operations and QI, real-time measurement of patient-reported outcomes, and interventions to support data literacy and engagement among parents of children with T1D.
   
• Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) in Adults: Dr. Lee works closely with the leadership team for the Michigan Collaborative for Type 2 Diabetes (MCT2D), a Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Collaborative Quality Initiative with the goal to prevent T2D and its complications through the equitable implementation of evidence-based diabetes care. In particular, Dr. Lee works with the data team to support the integration of claims, electronic health record, and health information exchange data as well as the development of business analytic dashboards to support the collaborative activities.
   
• Prevention and Treatment of Overweight/Obesity: Dr. Lee serves as the Director of the Life Course Research Informatics Core, an NIH-funded core of the Michigan Nutrition Obesity Research Center which supports basic, clinical, and translational researchers and enhances the integration of research into the clinical delivery system by leveraging the electronic health record and health information technology tools.
   
• Other areas of interest include collaborations with machine learning/artificial intelligence/human computing interaction experts to solve real-world clinical healthcare problems, and the use of real-time Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems in obesity and prediabetes.

Education

M.P.H., Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan, 2006
M.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2000    
B.A., Brown University,1995

Fellowship

Pediatric Endocrinology, Pediatric Health Services Research, C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, University of Michigan, 2003-2006

Residency

Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Boston & Boston Medical Center, Harvard Medical School 2000-2003

Additional Projects

• Elizabeth Weiser Caswell Diabetes Institute - Informatics and Clinical Research Innovation
• T1D Exchange Quality Improvement Collaborative