Lee H. Schwamm, MD

Vice President of Virtual Care • Mass General Brigham Health System

Lee graduated with a degree in Philosophy from Harvard College in 1985, and from Harvard Medical School in 1991. He completed his neurology residency and subsequent Neurocritical Care and Vascular Neurology fellowships at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1996 and then joined the faculty. He is Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and holds the C. Miller Fisher Chair in Vascular Neurology at MGH, where he is also Executive Vice Chairman of Neurology and Director of the Center for TeleHealth. He leads all systemwide virtual care (telehealth) activities for the Mass General Brigham Health System as Vice President of Virtual Care under the Chief Digital Health Officer.

Lee is board certified in Neurology, Vascular Neurology and Neurocritical Care, and is a Fellow of the American Heart Association and American Neurological Association. Clinically, he is a nationally recognized expert in all phases of stroke care. This includes (1) acute stroke treatment and new clinical and advanced imaging methods of selecting patients who will benefit from emergency stroke treatments; (2) stroke diagnosis and treatment, with an emphasis on determining the cause of stroke in the young including the contributions of patent foramen ovale (PFO), arterial dissection, blood clotting disorders and other unusual causes of stroke; and (3) stroke prevention, with an emphasis on how to achieve optimal cardiovascular health and reduce the risk of future stroke and other major vascular events.

He is the author of more than 400 peer-reviewed articles and has chaired many of the current practice guidelines for stroke and telehealth-enabled care delivery. He has received numerous awards for innovation, leadership and advocacy in the field of stroke. His pioneering work includes the development and dissemination of telemedicine-enabled stroke care (telestroke) and leadership of clinical care registries to improve stroke quality through the Get with the Guidelines Stroke program which monitors and improves stroke care at over 3,000 U.S. hospitals by tracking over 6 million stroke admissions to date. He has been widely recognized for his systemwide implementation of virtual care for over 11,000 providers across 12 hospitals in just 6 weeks during the COVID pandemic. His research has been funded by Harvard, MIT, NIH, CDC, and numerous federal agencies. He serves the AHA in numerous volunteer capacities and currently serves on the Board of Directors as chair of the American Stroke Association Advisory Committee.

A full list of his peer-reviewed scientific publications can be found online here.