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Podcast Episode

Ep. 28: Haven Healthcare Part 3: When Does a Setback Become a Warning?

Viral Healthcare··9 September 2026·25 min

About this episode

Then the warning lights started appearing.  A senior executive departed. Employee turnover followed. A promising pilot struggled with engagement. Amazon began developing healthcare initiatives of its own. Eventually, CEO Atul Gawande stepped away.  But none of those events, on its own, necessarily meant Haven was failing.  In Part 3 of the Haven Healthcare series, Dr. Bruce Spurlock examines one of the hardest challenges leaders face during implementation: how do you distinguish normal turbulence from a meaningful warning signal?  Rather than judging Haven with hindsight, Bruce follows the evidence as it accumulated and explores how tools like pre-mortems, leading indicators, milestones and predefined “trip wires” can help leaders recognize when persistence is warranted—and when it may be time to adapt, narrow or stop.  Because innovation rarely comes with one unmistakable moment when someone tells you the strategy isn't working. More often, leaders receive pieces of evidence and have to decide when those pieces have become a pattern.  Topics / Keywords  Haven Healthcare, healthcare innovation, healthcare leadership, implementation science, change management, pre-mortem, leading indicators, healthcare strategy, Amazon healthcare, Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan Chase, Atul Gawande, sunk cost fallacy, organizational change, healthcare transformation    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.