Indian American named CEO of Amazon-led joint health care

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Atul Gawande, an Indian American surgeon, writer and public health innovator has been named as the CEO of a new U.S. employee health care company, in a joint venture between Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase.

Gawande, 52, will start on July 9 and the new company will be headquartered in Boston, operating as an independent entity that is free from profit-making incentives and constraints, according to a PTI report.

“I have devoted my public health career to building scalable solutions for better health care delivery that are saving lives, reducing suffering and eliminating wasteful spending both in the US and across the world,” Gawande told PTI.

“Now I have the backing of these remarkable organisations 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. The system is broken, and better is possible,” he added.

Gawande practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is a professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School.

He is also the founding executive director of the health systems innovation centre at Ariadne Labs as well as a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine.

Gawande has written four New York Times bestsellers: Complications, Better, The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal and has received numerous awards for his contributions to science and health care.

“All felt that better care can be delivered and that rising costs can be checked. Jamie, Jeff and I are confident that we have found in Atul the leader who will get this important job done,” Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said in a statement.

“Together, we have the talent and resources to make things better, and it is our responsibility to do so. We’re so grateful for the countless statements of support and offers to help and participate, and we’re so fortunate to have attracted such an extraordinary leader and innovator as Atul,” Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said in a statement.

“We said at the outset that the degree of difficulty is high and success is going to require an expert’s knowledge, a beginner’s mind, and a long-term orientation. Atul embodies all three, and we’re starting strong as we move forward in this challenging and worthwhile endeavour,” Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, said in a statement.

According to a PTI report, the three CEOs announced their joint venture in January, to tackle rising health-care costs.