— Outlines problems facing the industry, but few specifics on how he’ll address them in new role
by Cheryl Clark, Senior Staff Writer inewsource/MedPage, June 22, 2018
Boston surgeon and prolific author Atul Gawande, MD, told health plan executives here that “many things I’ve been talking about could get to matter.” That’s because, as announced earlier this week, he is now heading the health insurance initiative spearheaded by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase. As CEO, he’ll redesign a healthcare system for his “one million new patients,” he said in an address during the annual conference of America’s Health Insurance Plans — from fulfillment center workers to finance professionals to factory and railway employees at the three companies, and who “need solutions that work.” But it won’t happen right away.
“I can only say it’s a long target,” he said, “it won’t be instant solutions,” he said. He added that he didn’t want to talk about his new role in any detail just yet. But he did say he will work on finding innovations that make it easier for clinicians to work together, to connect the pharmacist, the primary care clinician and the cardiologist. “We will come to a place where we can generate scalable solutions that change the practice of healthcare as a society … It’s a long road, but it’s clearly possible.”
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