Joyce Mee Kyoung 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.

Diabetes Type 1,diabetes Type 2 in children, obesity

University of Michigan Health participates with most health insurance plans.

I am a pediatric translational researcher and was named the Robert P. Kelch, MD, Research Professor of Pediatrics in 2016. As one of the few individuals across the country who has completed dual training in Pediatric Endocrinology and Pediatric Health Services Research and a Master in Public Health, my research agenda focuses on the overarching themes of obesity and type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Because of my specialized training, I have been able to approach these problems from a unique vantage point, using 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).

At the 2016 Pediatric Academic Societies meeting, I was the first recipient of the Paul Kaplowitz, MD, Endowed Lectureship for my contributions to quality and cost-effective care in Pediatric Endocrinology, an award sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Pediatric Endocrine Society. My 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. To date, I have over 130 peer-reviewed publications and have served as a Principal Investigator on multiple NIH grants. I am now pursuing my research under the broader framework of “Learning Health Systems”, which are systems in which “research, improvement, management and patient care, are intentionally integrated. In such a health system “learning while doing” is the default, thus ensuring that the right care is provided to the right child at the right time, every time.”

The Learning Health System model has resulted in dramatic improvements in health outcomes for a variety of children with chronic illnesses. There is greater opportunity for achieving this vision given the increasing focus on improving the quality of care for children in delivery systems, the near-universal adoption of electronic health records, and the rising interest in patient-centered care and design thinking. To support this shift in focus to a broader systems design approach to healthcare, I completed training in Advanced Methods in Quality Improvement at Cincinnati Children’s, became an Epic Physician Builder to redesign the clinical workflow to support an LHS model, and achieved proficiency with sql and the development of Tableau dashboards to liberate health system data for clinical care, quality improvement, and research. As of 2019-2020, I have taken on the roles of Associate Chief Medical Information Officer for Pediatric Research, Associate Chair for Health Metrics and Learning Health Systems for the Department of Pediatrics, Ambulatory Care Clinical Chief for Pediatric Medical Subspecialties, and Associate Director for Informatics and Clinical Research Innovation for the Caswell Diabetes Institute, which allows me to further support this vision for pediatric health.

Current areas of focus for research include:

Type 1 Diabetes:

• I collaborate with the T1D Exchange Quality Improvement Collaborative to improve the quality of care and health outcomes of individuals with Type 1 Diabetes. Particular areas of interest include adoption of telemedicine, Epic tool development and Tableau dashboard development for support operations and QI, measurement of patient reported outcomes (i.e. psychosocial outcomes) using Health IT tools, and interventions to support data literacy and data engagement among parents of children with T1D.
• I work with the JDRF Center of Excellence on a project to assess and measure psychosocial outcomes for patients with type 1 diabetes.
• Through my role with the Caswell Diabetes Institute, I provide health information technology expertise and data for diabetes/metabolism researchers at the University, and collaborate with human computing interaction and machine learning/artificial intelligence experts to understand how data can be used to solve real world healthcare problems.
• I conduct studies of online health communities and patient innovation.

Prevention and treatment of childhood overweight/obesity:

• As of 2020, I lead the Childhood Obesity Research Core (CORC), an NIH-funded core of the Michigan Nutrition Obesity Research Center which supports basic, clinical, and translational researchers focused on childhood nutrition and obesity and enhances integration of research into the clinical delivery system.
• I am working on the development of a statewide quality collaborative in the state of Michigan to address childhood overweight/obesity.
• Other areas of interest include biomarker discovery for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes in children and the development of low-carbohydrate nutrition interventions and real-time CGM in pediatric prediabetes.