The Lahey Innovation Hub recently welcomed Wei-Cheng Wang, MBA, PMP, as its new program manager. Wei brings more than 18 years of experience in healthcare technology, digital health, and enterprise program management, with a career spanning clinical informatics, portfolio governance, and large scale health system transformation across both the United States and Canada.
Prior to joining Lahey, Wei-Cheng held program and portfolio leadership roles supporting statewide healthcare interoperability initiatives. That breadth of experience, working with clinicians, engineers, and executive stakeholders to move healthcare technology from idea to implementation, positions him well to support the Hub's mission of turning promising ideas into real, sustainable improvements in care. We sat down with Wei-Cheng to learn more about his background and what he hopes to bring to the Hub.
What drew you to this role at the Innovation Hub?
"I was drawn to the opportunity to work at the intersection of clinical care, technology, research, and operations. Much of my career has focused on helping healthcare organizations move complex ideas into execution. The Innovation Hub gave me the chance to do that earlier in the process, helping identify promising ideas, connect the right people, evaluate opportunities, and build a pathway for innovation to move forward responsibly."
What's your background, and how does it set you up for this position?
"My background spans healthcare technology, digital health, clinical informatics, program management, and large-scale health system transformation. I have worked across both U.S. and Canadian healthcare systems, including provincial health organizations in British Columbia, where I supported digital health strategy, hospital redevelopment, clinical technology, virtual care, and enterprise portfolio management. That experience taught me that strong ideas often depend on more than the technology itself. They also require clear ownership, workflow fit, evidence, governance, funding, and a realistic path to scale. Those are exactly the kinds of connections the Innovation Hub is designed to help make."
What's a piece of advice you find yourself repeating to others in your work?
"Start with the problem, not the solution. In healthcare, it is easy to become excited about a new technology or product. But first we need to understand the underlying problem, who experiences it, how significant it is, and what outcome we are trying to improve. Once the problem is clear, the right solution often becomes much easier to identify."
What does innovation in healthcare mean to you?
"Innovation is not simply introducing new technology. It means creating a meaningfully better way to deliver care, support clinicians, improve operations, generate knowledge, or improve the patient experience. A successful innovation should create measurable value and have a realistic path to becoming usable, sustainable, and scalable."
Coming from provincial health systems in Canada to U.S. healthcare innovation work, what's been the biggest adjustment or the most interesting contrast?
"One of the biggest differences is how innovation moves through the healthcare system. Canadian provincial systems often encourage thinking at a broad health system or population level, with a strong focus on standardization and scalability. The U.S. environment brings a wider mix of market forces, reimbursement considerations, technology companies, startups, investors, and industry partnerships. I see value in combining both perspectives, the discipline to think about system-wide impact and sustainability, together with the entrepreneurial energy and speed that can accelerate healthcare innovation."
As Wei-Cheng settles into his new role, the Innovation Hub team looks forward to the perspective and experience he brings to advancing healthcare innovation at Lahey, and to the ideas and partnerships his work will help move forward in the months ahead.
