The Amazon-Berkshire Hathaway-J.P. Morgan healthcare initiative has hired a new employee: Dana Gelb Safran, who will serve as “head of measurement,” according to CNBC. She’ll step into the new role early next year.
Safran serves as Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts’ chief performance measurement and improvement officer and senior vice president of enterprise analytics. In other words, she works on leveraging data and analytics to measure and improve patient outcomes.
According to her bio on the BCBS speakers bureau site, she is also a faculty member in the department of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Safran earned her master and doctor of science degrees in health policy from the Harvard School of Public Health.
As CNBC notes, this hire implies that Amazon, Berkshire and JPM are interested in leveraging data-driven tactics.
Their Boston-based venture has yet to be named but will focus on technology solutions that help the three organizations’ U.S. employees and their families with healthcare.
Safran will be in good company in her new position. Atul Gawande, a surgeon and author who has been outspoken about topics like wasteful healthcare spending and unnecessary care amping up costs, serves as CEO. The venture also tapped Jack Stoddard, who spent three years with UnitedHealth Group, as COO. More recently, Stoddard was Comcast’s general manager of digital health.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
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