The Indian Panorama

Tag: Berkshire Hathaway

  • Indian American Surgeon Atul Gawande nominated to Senior Job at USAID

    Indian American Surgeon Atul Gawande nominated to Senior Job at USAID

    WASHINGTON (TIP): U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday, July 13 nominated writer, surgeon and public health expert Atul Gawande to lead global health development at the U.S. Agency for International Development, including for COVID-19, the White House said. Gawande, author of four New York Times best-selling books and a professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, would serve as the assistant administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Global Health, if confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

    His role at USAID will focus on efforts to prevent child and maternal deaths, control the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and combat infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, a White House official said.

    Gawande appears to be taking his own advice. Last month, he told advanced degree graduates at Stanford University to be “open to trying stuff – to saying yes” to new opportunities. “I’m honored to be nominated to lead global health development at USAID, including for COVID. With more COVID deaths worldwide in the first half of 2021 than in all of 2020, I’m grateful for the chance to help end this crisis and to re-strengthen public health systems worldwide,” Atul Gawande said in a tweet. Atul Gawande is the Cyndy and John Fish Distinguished Professor of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Samuel O. Their Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

    He is also founder and chair of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally.

    During the coronavirus pandemic, he co-founded CIC Health, which operates COVID-19 testing and vaccination nationally, and served as a member of the Biden transition COVID-19 Advisory Board.

    From 2018 to 2020, he was CEO of Haven, the Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase health care venture. He previously served as a senior advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services in the Clinton Administration. In addition, Mr Gawande has been a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine since 1998. 2He is the winner of two National Magazine Awards, Academy Health’s Impact Award for highest research impact on health care, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Lewis Thomas Award for writing about science.

  • Indian American Surgeon Atul Gawande Appointed CEO Of Amazon-JP Morgan Venture

    Indian American Surgeon Atul Gawande Appointed CEO Of Amazon-JP Morgan Venture

    NEW YORK(TIP): Indian American surgeon, writer and public health innovator Atul Gawande has been named as the CEO of a new US employee health care company, a joint venture between Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase, the three American majors announced on June 21.

    Mr Gawande, 52, will take over as the Chief Executive Officer of the company from July 9. The new company will be headquartered in Boston and will operate as an independent entity that is free from profit-making incentives and constraints.

    Mr Gawande said he was “thrilled” to be named the CEO of the health care initiative.

    “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,” he said.

    “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. The system is broken, and better is possible,” he said.

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

    He is founding executive director of the health systems innovation center, Ariadne Labs and is also is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine.

    Mr 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.

    Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett said talent and dedication were manifest among many professionals the trio interviewed. “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,” he said.

    Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon said in a statement that as employers and as leaders, addressing health care was one of the most important things that can be done for employees and their families, as well as for the communities.

    “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,” he said.

    “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,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.

    “Atul embodies all three, and we’re starting strong as we move forward in this challenging and worthwhile endeavor,” he said.

    Buffet, Dimon and Bezos had announced the partnership in January to tackle rising health-care costs.