JPMorgan Chase steps back into healthcare

Investment banking company JPMorgan Chase will invest millions of dollars in an effort to improve healthcare through a new business unit called Morgan Health.

According to a news release, the new unit will focus on improving the quality, efficiency, and equity in employer-sponsored healthcare.

“We need to try to make the U.S. healthcare system work better,” Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, says in the release. “We have the best healthcare in the world in terms of doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, but we certainly do not have the best outcomes. Many of our problems have been around for a long time and are not aging well. There are ways we can make significant improvements and we intend to take a disciplined approach to solving some of these issues in a meaningful way.”

Morgan Health will initially focus on JPMorgan Chase employees and their families but will seek to be a model for other employers and partner with others. It will focus on three areas:

• Accelerate systemic improvement through $250 million in investments
• Enhancing employee health benefits through strategic initiatives
• Promoting healthcare equity in the communities JPMorgan Chase serves

“JPMorgan Chase has been focused on improving healthcare for its employees for many years,” Dan Mendelson, CEO of Morgan Health, says in the release. “We are going to take what we’ve learned and accelerate healthcare innovation in the employer-sponsored healthcare market, partnering with and investing in companies that share our goals, and measuring key health outcomes to show what works.”

Earlier this year the bank shuttered Haven, a joint healthcare venture with Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway, in what industry-watchers called a sign of the difficulty of attempting to improve the American healthcare system, CNBC reports.