November 28, 2023
Dr. Patrick Lee was honored to serve as the inaugural System Chairman of Medicine for One Brooklyn Health (OBH), a new safety net health system in Central Brooklyn serving over 1 million people who experience the highest levels of health inequity in NYC. He led 11 clinical divisions and 570+ physicians and staff responsible for >70% of OBH’s clinical care across 3 hospital campuses and 27 ambulatory areas. Dr. Lee developed OBH’s 3-year Board-approved ambulatory strategy and a $100M funding proposal to NY State to improve health equity in Central Brooklyn. He unified three hospital medical staffs into a system Dept of Medicine and successfully recruited and retained many physicians across multiple specialties. Dr. Lee led improvement initiatives resulting in ~300 fewer inpatient deaths/year, 20% lower severe sepsis mortality, improved population health quality (4 out of 5 stars, Medicaid/Medicare), and the Silver Plus Award for Heart Failure (AHA, 2023). He established new fellowships in pulmonary/critical care, palliative care, and gastroenterology, and a revitalized research and cancer clinical trials program.
From 2018-2021, Dr. Lee was Chairman of Medicine at Mass General Brigham Salem Hospital where he led the Dept of Medicine response to the highest COVID-19 patient volume among community hospitals in Massachusetts with >1200 patients discharged alive (2x reduction vs. published national mortality rate). He served on the Executive Leadership Team that oversaw a >$70M improvement in financial performance from 2018-2020.
Previously, Dr. Lee was Chief Performance Improvement Officer for Lynn Community Health Center where he led a Lean system transformation and improved population health earning two national quality awards (Centers for Disease Control and HRSA, 2017). Dr. Lee founded the Global Primary Care Residency Program at Mass General Hospital and developed a popular global health course at Harvard Medical School. As Medical Director at Last Mile Health in Liberia, Dr. Lee supervised the national scale-up of an HIV community health worker model in partnership with Liberia’s Ministry of Health. Dr. Lee has written on primary care systems, quality improvement, and medical education in the Lancet, BMJ Quality, the Journal of General Internal Medicine, and the Journal of Graduate Medical Education.
Dr. Lee earned a BA in English from Princeton University and an MD from the UCSF School of Medicine. He trained in internal medicine and primary care at Mass General Hospital and completed a fellowship in medical education at Harvard Medical School.
Watch the Community Conversation with Dr. Lee