Dr. Atul Gawande will lead the joint health-care venture between Amazon, J.P. Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway, the three companies announced Wednesday.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced a partnership in January to tackle rising health-care costs.

They will form a new company for the venture, which will be headquartered in Boston, a hub for biotechnology and medical research. It will be “free from profit-making incentives and constraints.”

Gawande will start July 9. He currently practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School.

He is founding executive director of Ariadne Labs, a health systems innovation center. He’s also written numerous books on, including “Being Mortal” and “The Checklist Manifesto.”

“I’m thrilled to be named CEO of this healthcare initiative,” Gawande said in a statement. “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.”

Former Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief Andy Slavitt, who was among the consultants the trio talked to, praised the decision.

“There are few better people in health care than (Gawande),” he said. “They are fortunate to have him, principally because of his moral leadership.”

Buffett said in a statement the trio was looking for “talent and dedication” when interviewing candidates.

“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,” Bezos said in a statement. “(Gawande) embodies all three, and we’re starting strong as we move forward in this challenging and worthwhile endeavor.”

Health-care experts have expressed skepticism on whether the three, while business icons, could simplify the current system. Many agree there’s plenty of costs to cut, but they doubt the companies can do it.

Source: Tech CNBC
Buffett, Bezos, Dimon appoint Dr. Atul Gawande as CEO of their newly formed health care company