Amazon-JP Morgan-Hathaway name Indian origin Dr. Atul Gawande as CEO of their heralded healthcare firm
Boston, Jun 21 (IBNS): Indian-origin Dr. Atul Gawande, a celebrity Harvard surgeon and writer, has been picked as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a new healthcare company launched by Amazon, J.P. Morgan, and Berkshire Hathaway, to provide high-quality and affordable care.
Three CEOs- Amazon's Jeff Bezos, J.P. Morgan's Jamie Dimon and Hathaway's Warren Buffet - had announced the joint venture in January to tackle rising health care costs.
The healthcare startup is aimed at bringing down healthcare costs for the three companies’ employees, with an indication that it will try to provide solutions for the entire U.S. health system plagued by high costs.
Who is Gawande?
Gawande, now 52, will start working as the CEO on Jul 9. He presently practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Born in Brooklyn to Maharashtrian parents who were both doctors and had migrated to the US, he had studied medicine at Stanford University and then dabbled in economics, politics and philosophy at Oxford, according to media reports.
He is a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School. He has authored several books which are New York Times bestsellers.
Following the naming of the CEO of the company, Gawande's reaction has been quoted by CNBC as saying, "I'm thrilled to be named CEO of this healthcare initiative."
"I have devoted my public health career to building scalable solutions for better healthcare delivery that are saving lives, reducing suffering, and eliminating wasteful spending both in the US and across the world.
"Now I have the backing of these remarkable organizations to pursue this mission with even greater impact for more than a million people, and in doing so incubate better models of care for all. This work will take time but must be done," he added. "The system is broken, and better is possible."
The company, which will be headquartered in Boston, is yet to be named.
The Harvard surgeon was always critical of the US healthcare system. In a Bloomberg story, he was quoted comparing the U.S. medical system to a car built with Porsche brakes, a Ferrari engine and a BMW chassis.
“You put it all together and what do you get?” Atul Gawande said at a 2012 TED conference. “A very expensive pile of junk that does not go anywhere,” he was quoted.
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