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After three years, Haven, the much-anticipated health venture from Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan, is shutting down. Little information came from the company itself on the decision to end the business, merely stating that its founding companies would collaborate further in the future. When it disbands at the end of February, its staff will be divvied up among its three founding partners.
Haven was an attempt to exert some control over ever-rising healthcare costs while also ensuring quality. Dr. Atul Gawande, surgeon, researcher, and professor at Harvard Medical School, helmed the effort. Gawande was a surprising choice. As a professor of health policy and management at Harvard and founding executive director of Ariadne Labs, an incubator for health systems research, his healthcare credentials are formidable. He’s also written some compelling articles on the health industry for publications such as The New Yorker. However, as an academic and practicing surgeon, he’s something of an outsider in corporate America.