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Surgeon Atul Gawande selected as CEO of new health care company from Amazon

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Re: Surgeon Atul Gawande selected as CEO of new health care company from Amazon

#111

Post by kcommam »

nappy-doo wrote: post #95
maxxxxx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering how f...ed up the American health system is on all levels I am fine with giving an outsider a chance. Gawande appears to be a reasonable guy and a good communicator. Even if he fails, nothing is lost because the system can't get worse.

Ah, the ol' MAGA argument.

This would actually seem to be the misunderstand antecedent to the MAGA argument, which uses successful examples of exactly this type of "disruption" to fallacious claim replacing governance experience with business experience will have positive results.

Re: Surgeon Atul Gawande selected as CEO of new health care company from Amazon

#114

Post by siculars »

entee wrote: post #76
aaavl2821 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also done some work trying to get people to implement different models of care outside of the traditional institutions, and getting physicians on board is just a big hurdle. As a group they are pretty conservative and risk averse, hugely busy, and there aren't a lot of places where they congregate, online or otherwise, so outreach is a bit of hand to hand combat. I have an untested hypothesis that one of the bes…

Another (darker) perspective: they don’t want to lose money. Healthcare in the US is expensive in no small part because we pay more for things (duh). One of those things is physician time. Primary care physicians in the US make $60K more a year than comparable nations [1]. Dirty secret of healthcare: “efficiency” translates to “I make less money” for almost everyone in the system, very much including doctors. All wil…

Physicians, and others, pay for their medical education in the US. How do physicians pay for their education in other countries or is it paid for them by their governments?

Re: Surgeon Atul Gawande selected as CEO of new health care company from Amazon

#116

Post by tootie »

He's written a lot for the New Yorker is very intelligent and thoughtful. No idea how he'll adjust to being an executive of a corporation, but I think that is a risk worth taking. It sends a message that they will be patient-first and strongly evidence-based.

https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/atul-gawande

Re: Surgeon Atul Gawande selected as CEO of new health care company from Amazon

#117

Post by refurb »

karl11 wrote: post #102
refurb wrote: post #99

It's interesting reading the comments here. People with no background (I assume) in healthcare describe the guy as "brilliant" and "the perfect choice". People with years of experience in healthcare question think he's a poor pick and just a famous name. It's amazing what a good public relations strategy can do for someone!

People with years of experience in healthcare are invested in the status quo.

That’s Silicon Valley speak. People with actual experience on how something works and have practical ideas on how to make it better as passed over by people with better PR agencies.

Re: Surgeon Atul Gawande selected as CEO of new health care company from Amazon

#118

Post by projectramo »

acangiano wrote: post #92
projectramo wrote: post #42

When I read the checklist manifesto I thought it was going to change my life. It didn't because I didn't put it into effect. Then I thought it would be great if software did the work for me, including communal checklists that people can share with me. (Got a new car, here is a checklist template. Got a new house? Here is the checklist template? Is it an investment property, use this checklist. Oh, that is good for Fl…

Have you tried Process Street?

Just looked it up. It looks interesting for a company that wants to run a process.

I was thinking more for individuals, and note that the key is having people remember things you may not. For example, if the list has something like check your roof for leaks if its been 15 years or something you may not think of.

Re: Surgeon Atul Gawande selected as CEO of new health care company from Amazon

#119

Post by zjacobi »

arkades wrote: post #94
aaavl2821 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call him a popularizer, I'd call him a good communicator, which is an essential trait to any leader, especially one trying to do something long term and visionary. Effectively communicating new ideas to the wider medical community, especially super busy physicians, is really hard, and is the first step towards driving physician-led change in the healthcare system. I dont think his ideas are shallow or one…

> I don’t think his ideas are shallow or one dimensional, but I havent read all of his work. You wouldn’t. He adds depth through humanity, while eliding the pile of data that contradicts his points - data you have no reason to notice is missing. While the hc QI community was getting over checklists because of the number of studies showing it to be a largely ineffective intervention, he ignored the pile and kicked off…

> While the hc QI community was getting over checklists because of the number of studies showing it to be a largely ineffective intervention, he ignored the pile and kicked off a second wave

I just thumbed through meta-analyses on Google scholar and this definitely doesn't look like the results of recent research into checklists (e.g. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bjs.9381)

It seems like there are problems getting people to agree to do checklists or keep with them, but if you come up with the right checklist and get the right buy-in, you do see fewer complications.

(If anyone wants to look at the recent research for themselves, here's the Google Scholar search I used: https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?as_ylo=2014&q=checklist+su...)

Re: Surgeon Atul Gawande selected as CEO of new health care company from Amazon

#120

Post by sonnyblarney »

baus wrote: post #18
entee wrote: post #12

Atul Gawande is a brilliant person with interesting ideas on how to make healthcare more humane and robust. This is still probably a terrible choice of CEO. To my knowledge he has never run a large organization or dealt directly with the complex backend of the healthcare system. The was healthcare is delivered and paid for is full of independent, semi monopolistic players that have often conflicting incentives. Oh an…

I’d say hire that person as the COO. This will be a big organization. I think the person at the top needs to have a strong ideals about the direction of the organization

The CEO cannot be a figurehead.

I really agree with the top commenter and am totally flumoxed as to how Buffet et. al. can back this.

Not only is this going to require 'CEO abilities' - it's also kind of a 'mega corporate startup' - which is another thing very difficult to achieve.

Amazon is ruthlessly operational, by the numbers etc. - this will collide with medical bureaucracy pretty hard ... it's almost as though you want an outsider ...

Or, to buy a small company or two and combine them, a small team with the 'right chops' and then back them with scale, financing etc..

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