Sanjoti Parekh, Ph.D.

Sanjoti Parekh has 20 years of experience serving in leadership, management, and advisory roles in the Australian healthcare industry. Prior to that she worked as a clinician for five years. With expertise in public health, epidemiology, and primary care, she leads policy and program reviews, rapid and systematic literature reviews, health services planning, and development of population health strategies. In addition, Sanjoti oversees outcome and impact evaluations, post-implementation reviews, and quality-improvement, governance, and research programs. She has worked for the Department of Health at various state and Federal levels as well as with the Department of Veteran Affairs and Dental Health Services, Victoria.

Sanjoti manages a broad range of consulting projects, including evaluations, service mapping, health needs assessments, and systematic reviews. Managing a diverse team of consultants, she delivers projects that span multiple sectors, including physical health, mental health, rare disease, disability, and child protection. Among other projects, she leads the Service Function Review of Palliative Care and End of Life Care services. The work includes mapping the services across the Australian Capital Territory and identifying the barriers to and enablers of service provision. The six-month project has gathered information from around 80 stakeholders to ensure we capture a 360-degree view of how the services function. She also directs the evaluation of the Smile Squad program in around 1000 schools in Victoria.

Sanjoti’s previous experience includes managing a research, monitoring, and evaluation unit for four years within Abt. In this role, Sanjoti managed several evaluation projects and health services needs analyses for the Central Queensland, Wide Bay, Sunshine Coast Primary Health Network. Her work led to changes in service delivery based on needs and establishment of monitoring cycles to measure impacts. The evidence she presented also led to changes in policy and programs and development of new models of care. She has 14 years of teaching and/or research experience at various universities, has worked as a management consultant for a decade, and owned a clinical practice for five years.

Expertise

• Technical expertise in epidemiology including evidence based public health
• Client relationship management
• Program management
• Project management including planning, budgeting, risk management, team building and decision-making
• Stakeholder engagement and management

Key Projects

• Evaluation of Smile Squad Program delivered across public schools in Victoria (Dental Health)
• A rapid review to gather evidence on policies focused on inclusion of Sickle Cell Disease in Newborn Bloodspot Screen in Australia (Evidence Review) 
• Monitoring & Evaluation of the Primary Care Enhancement Program Pilot (Health of people with intellectual disability) across four jurisdictions in Australia
• Service Function Review of Palliative and End-of-life Care services in ACT
• Health and service needs analysis and strategy development, CQWBSCPHN

Publications

• Lakhani A, Parekh S et al. Access and engagement with places in the community, and the quality of life among people with spinal cord damage. The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine. 2021:1-9.
• Iyengar S, Parekh S. et al . Clinical and Community Advisory Councils in Primary Health Networks: From consultation to collaboration for action. Australian Journal of Rural Health. 2018;26(3):225-6.
• Parekh S et al Variability in Use of Health Services and Its Association with Self-Management Skills: A Population-Based Exploratory Analysis. Population Health Management. 2015;19(1):31-8.
• Parekh S et al Evaluating impact of a multi-dimensional education programme on perceived performance of primary care professionals in diabetes care. Primary Health Care Research & Development. 2015;16(6):589-96.
• Parekh S et al Randomized controlled trial of a computer-tailored multiple health behaviour intervention in general practice: 12-month follow-up results. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 2014;11(1):41.