After medical school and specialty training as a pediatric hospitalist, Lee arrived at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier, Calif., in 2006, just as it was planning the switch to an electronic health-record system. He jumped at the chance to combine his career choice with his old digital love and volunteered for committee work.
In 2008, he was named the 444-bed hospital's first director of medical informatics. That same year, the hospital began “a rapid, rapid” health implementation cycle, “from CPOE to integrating the pharmacy system, nursing and physician documentation,” the works, Lee says.
In 2010, the affiliated physician group joined the hospital to create an integrated delivery system. In 2012, Lee, since elevated to chief medical information officer, and the renamed system PIH Health, began extending an ambulatory EHR to them, replacing an old “legacy” EHR some used with a new one.