CNN reports that Amazon has hired Maulik Majmudar, a highly respected cardiologist and the associate director of the Healthcare Transformation Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital.
The thing is, neither Amazon nor Majmudar has been specific about exactly what he’ll be doing there. Majmudar just tweeted that he “is moving to "an exciting and challenging role @amazon.”
Still, CNN notes that “Majmudar has long worked at the intersection of health care and technology. The Healthcare Transformation Lab says it looks to ‘improve the experience and value of healthcare for patients and providers through collaborative innovation.’ It also focuses on digital health, including mobile and wearable devices and data analytics.
“Majmudar, who earned his medical degree at Northwestern University, is also a lecturer and visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. He is also medical adviser at Biofourmis, a start up focusing on monitoring patients remotely, and HiLabs, which focuses on health care data mining. He previously served as founding member and chief clinical officer at Quanttus, which unsuccessfully tried to develop a wrist-based app that monitors blood pressure.”
Amazon has shown significant interest in the health care sector. Most recently, it acquired PillPack, a company that sorts pills into pre-packed doses for ease of consumers; PillPack has pharmacy licenses in all 50 states, and is seen as a potential vehicle that Amazon can ride into the health care industry.
At the same time, Amazon is engaged in a joint venture with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase that is charged with helping each of these companies reinvent health care delivery systems and reduce health care costs. While little is known about the effort - it doesn’t even have a name - it has hired renowned surgeon and writer Atul Gawande as CEO.
In his tweet, Majmudar wrote, "The one and only reason I am taking on this opportunity is the possibility of making a truly meaningful impact on the health and wellbeing of hundreds of millions of individuals throughout the world.”
The thing is, neither Amazon nor Majmudar has been specific about exactly what he’ll be doing there. Majmudar just tweeted that he “is moving to "an exciting and challenging role @amazon.”
Still, CNN notes that “Majmudar has long worked at the intersection of health care and technology. The Healthcare Transformation Lab says it looks to ‘improve the experience and value of healthcare for patients and providers through collaborative innovation.’ It also focuses on digital health, including mobile and wearable devices and data analytics.
“Majmudar, who earned his medical degree at Northwestern University, is also a lecturer and visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. He is also medical adviser at Biofourmis, a start up focusing on monitoring patients remotely, and HiLabs, which focuses on health care data mining. He previously served as founding member and chief clinical officer at Quanttus, which unsuccessfully tried to develop a wrist-based app that monitors blood pressure.”
Amazon has shown significant interest in the health care sector. Most recently, it acquired PillPack, a company that sorts pills into pre-packed doses for ease of consumers; PillPack has pharmacy licenses in all 50 states, and is seen as a potential vehicle that Amazon can ride into the health care industry.
At the same time, Amazon is engaged in a joint venture with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase that is charged with helping each of these companies reinvent health care delivery systems and reduce health care costs. While little is known about the effort - it doesn’t even have a name - it has hired renowned surgeon and writer Atul Gawande as CEO.
In his tweet, Majmudar wrote, "The one and only reason I am taking on this opportunity is the possibility of making a truly meaningful impact on the health and wellbeing of hundreds of millions of individuals throughout the world.”
- KC's View:
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It is, I think, a measure of Amazon’s ambitions, which translate into an ability to appeal to the best and the brightest. That, I believe, gives it a potentially heart-stopping advantage.
