New Amazon-led health care company names surgeon Atul Gawande as CEO

A closely-watched new health care company from Amazon, JP Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway on Wednesday named Atul Gawande, a surgeon famous for his writing and ideas on health care, as its CEO.

The new venture from three of the country’s most prominent companies has been the subject of much talk in the health-care industry because of its potential to shake up the system and change the way it operates.

However, it is unclear so far what exactly the new company will do.

The addition of Gawande provides a prominent leader for the company.

“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,” Gawande said in a statement. “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.”

{mosads}Gawande is a surgeon and professor at Harvard Medical School. He is also well known for his books and writing in the New Yorker about the U.S. health-care system.

“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,” Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, said in a statement. “Atul embodies all three, and we’re starting strong as we move forward in this challenging and worthwhile endeavor.”

The new company will be based in Boston and, the companies said, will “operate as an independent entity that is free from profit-making incentives and constraints.”