Hedgehogs, healthcare and Haven: When business leaders miss the mark

(Originally published in MedCity News in 2020. Coauthored with Ryan Van Wert.)

We care a lot about the topic of leadership in healthcare, as we all should. Let’s look at the news from Haven, the new healthcare organization formed as a joint effort by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase. The founders’ intention is to transform the industry. A couple of months before Atul Gawande was appointed its CEO — with great fanfare, as he is a very well-known name in healthcare- Joe wrote about Haven. He wrote passionately because he wanted the Haven founders to get the model and leadership right.

Unfortunately, when Gawande was hired as CEO, we (Joe and Ryan) suspected it would not work out. As it turns out, it hasn’t. Haven announced last week that Gawande was stepping down to focus on Covid-19 efforts and will move into the role of executive chairman.

Gawande is an extraordinary and accomplished surgeon, writer and professor. And he’s Exhibit A in why healthcare organizations need to re-think their leadership structures entirely. Here’s a snippet from the article, written before he was hired:

To read more, click the link below.

Originally published at https://medcitynews.com on May 19, 2020.