Bio
Julie J. Lee, MD, MPH, is a board-certified internal medicine physician and clinical informaticist at Stanford University. Dr. Lee's expertise in clinical informatics enables her to implement informatics-driven approaches and new technologies, such as AI, to optimize clinical workflows, alleviate physician burnout, and champion health equity in a world of growing dependence on digitalized health systems.
Dr. Lee has been key to several initiatives in improving operational processes within Stanford. Her efforts range from advancing the governance of clinical decision support to the strategic integration of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program into the electronic health record (EHR), thereby reducing clinician work burden in addressing the opioid crisis. Additionally, she has developed an innovative EHR tool that serves as a dynamic guide and triage system, effectively managing the surge of patient portal communications.
Health equity is her north star, informing Dr. Lee to dedicated engagement with historically underrepresented populations in medical research and collaborative partnerships between academia and community healthcare practitioners. Her previous role as an EpiScholar with the Los Angeles Department of Public Health involved researching the impact of language and acculturation on the Latino population's dietary habits and health behaviors, with a particular focus on diabetes. She has also worked with community health centers in east Los Angeles to bridge the translational gap between academic research and frontline healthcare workers, facilitating the transfer of cutting-edge liver disease research to those treating patients with substance abuse-related liver conditions. Of major clinical interest is cardiovascular disease—she has published several papers on impact of sex-specific risk factors for cardiovascular disease in women and transgender population.
Currently, as a part of her informatics approaches, Dr. Lee focuses health equity on leveraging patient data and AI/ML models to identify and mitigate health disparities, making certain they function as instruments of equity rather than increasing gaps. She is a member of Healthcare AI Applied Research Team (HEA3RT) with a focus on bringing code to bedside. In the upcoming academic year, Dr. Lee will lead as health equity informaticist within the Primary Care Population Health division at Stanford.
