Vivian S. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A, is President of Health Platforms at Verily Life Sciences, which is a company that focuses on digital solutions to optimize health. Dr. Lee also serves as a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. She is the author of the book, The Long Fix: Solving America’s Health Care Crisis with Strategies that Work for Everyone. Dr. Lee was the former Dean, SVP, and CEO of University of Utah Health. As a leading healthcare executive, she is committed to the advancement of value-driven transformation in health care. By training, Lee is an MR radiologist who developed novel methods for measuring kidney function and vascular disease with MRI.
Dr. Lee was ranked #11 among the Most Influential People in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare in 2019. Dr. Lee was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2015.
Dr. Lee’s main motivation in life was to do something interesting and high impact. She completely immersed herself in the job that she was given and encourages those starting their careers to do the same. She encourages young adults starting their careers not “focus so much on the future that you miss out on the present.”
At first, Dr. Lee was the Ceo of Utah Health and served as the dean for 6 years, then she transitioned to working at Verily. At Utah Health, she created an innovative approach to health care delivery that allowed for lower costs and higher patient satisfaction. Dr. Lee was recruited 3 years ago to start heath platforms and help to build tools in order to carry out clinical trials. Her goal was to make healthcare more accessible while lowering the cost. She created five to six business lines at Verily after the CEO proposed that she take the ideas from the book that she wrote about fixing healthcare systems and implement them into Verily’s company model. These models focus on the core constituents of healthcare.
Dr. Lee gave some advice on getting into the healthcare space in our talk with her. Firstly, she emphasized the importance of having background knowledge and experience in healthcare. She pointed out that writing the “pharmaceutical” portion of her book as she had the least experience in that field.
“You have to have knowledge of the field to get into healthcare.”
Additionally, she mentioned that “you have to have a very clear vision.” It is also imperative to correctly articulate this vision to those above you within a company.
Dr. Lee has and continues to make significant contributions to the healthcare industry and reframing the healthcare system.
