tbg7504

Most accurate observation and comment on this topic! With 10+ years of healthcare experience including Brigham and Women's hospital many years ago, he's a good writer, storyteller, but truly is just a famous name that Amazon-Chase-Berkshire venture wants. Without the Harvard brand, his work, while good, wouldn't be that highly praised and worshipped. There are better visionary physicians out there.

My main takeaway is: being a good storyteller or facilitator on innovation does not make you any more innovative without the experience to support it. However, it can significantly elevate your personal brand beyond your qualificiations and apparently lure wealthy people to invest in you.

Yes, he recently retired. I don't know if he would be interested but only meant to use it as an example of other well-qualified physicians leaders.

Full disclosure: I've worked in healthcare for prestigious AMCs, but have zero affiliation with Cleveland Clinic or Iora Health.

Great comparison, but other than articles what kind of products or scalable accomplishments has Atul Gawande achieved in healthcare that is comparable to the impact of the iPhone?

Yes! Great minds think alike, arkades! I completely agree with you and disagree with the two commentators. Atul is absolutely a good communicator/storyteller/popularizer (whatever terminology suits people). I used to read his Cheesecake Factory article where he discussed standardization of healthcare, which I thought it was good.

In the recent years, I find him at an excess amount of healthcare conferences speaking or writing on topics that's not within his realm of expertise such as patient experience, opioid pandemic, technology, artifical intelligence. The audience is often captivated by his stories and writing to not be able to differentiate how he's really repeating others' work and quick to write about what's currently trending in healthcare.

He's a good writer, physician, knowledgeable but not an executor.

BWH culture is crumbling so I won't blame him for seeking other opportunities. However, this is an odd/weak selection where I believe Amazon-Berkshire-Chase will regret. Toby Crosgrove, former Cleveland Clinic CEO, would have been a well-qualified candidate and better choice. He has over 10+ years of leading a highly complex AMC and elevating the organization into the top 3 hospitals in the country for many consecutive years. This man can get things done via transformative, sustainable, and systematic changes. Alternatively, the CEO of Iora Health would have been a good choice too. Let's pause and compare performaces and outcome of between Cleveland Clinic under Crosgrove and Iora Health under their leader, and Adrianes lab under Atul. The result is clear. Atul doesn't have the experience only the Harvard brand. Being a CEO is different from being a professor, surgeon, philosopher, or executive director at the Adrianes Lab. In those roles and physician-led environment where MDs are treated like kings, the medical directors can put in 5-10% of their time with the expertise of administrators, interns, staffs and get away with having the breadth but little depth and claiming to be a SME. Atul seems like a good storyteller and highly intelligent physician, but he is absolutely an individual contributor. Frankly, Boston is full of highly intelligent and innovative people like Atul; the CEO of this venture should have more experience or at least specializes in one of the three verticals. Atul would have been a better executive advisor.

Concerns: - He stated not wanting to give up his privileges of practicing at BWH and professorship at Harvard meaning he can't be fully committed to leading this new organization. This is not an academic medical center environment where a physician can have multiple administrative titles and not put in the hours and work. - Atul's fame is credited to his publication, but also from the prestige of Harvard's affiliations. He knows this and is trying to strategic about not giving that up, but I would hope he realize that truly effective leaders know they can't do everything. Most of those innovator physicians stretch themselves too thin and get their hands into too many pots, making them ineffective. If he's serious, then he needs to commit and prioritize.

IMO, extreme network/lip service must have been invloved in his pursuit or the new venture and company is only buying his fame, reputation, and brand for marketing purposes.