Amitoj Brar

Trained physician and public health practitioner managing health equity operations for Medicaid for the state of New Jersey; designing and leading implementation of multiple projects and initiatives that aim to reduce health disparities, promote health justice, and improve healthcare delivery and outcomes. Motivated by values of social justice, human rights, and public service.

Public Health Experience

• Co-leading building out of HEO at NJ-DMAHS in collaboration with Director of HEO, the Assistant Commissioner, and leaders of all operational areas at NJ-DMAHS, including but not limited to, co-planning and implementing a governance structure, goals, committees, and sub-committees, and systematizing community involvement and inclusion of member experience in health equity work
• Co-leading changes in applications for Medicaid-eligibility determination to increase granularity and quality of race, ethnicity, and language data
• Evaluating and guiding clinical providers participating in NJ-DMAHS’s Perinatal Episodic Care Pilot of a value-based payment model, for the design and submission of their Health Equity Action Plans
• Co-leading efforts to advance health equity, diversity, and inclusion in NJ Medicaid’s processes for estate recovery, stratification and use of data, risk assessment, healthcare delivery, member experience, quality of care, and 1115 waiver
• Founding co-chair of NJ-DMAHS’s Health Equity Advisory Committee that aims to advise NJ-DMAHS on ongoing and planned health equity activities, creation of a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Workgroup, and a Data Quality Workgroup.
• Co-created and lead implementation, in collaboration with the Health Equity Advisory Committee, of a division-wide survey to gather employee input on the current state and next steps for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work at DMAHS
• Spearheading and planning research efforts in collaboration with the Rutgers Institute of State Health Policy, to assess and address health equity in non-emergency medical transport and access to care for sickle cell disease in New Jersey Medicaid
• Developed strategies for ongoing outreach to marginalized communities with high procedural disenrollment rates, during the process of ‘Unwinding’ that began in April 2023
• Organized and presented at several cross-division events to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion, for example, Hispanic Heritage Month, National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Native American Heritage Month, Asian American Heritage Month, Women’s History Month, etc.
• Updated NJ-Medicaid’s contract with Managed Care Organizations (MCO) to enhance health equity and designing related accountability and oversight
• Facilitating Technical Assistance that NJ-Medicaid is receiving from State Health and Value Strategies to assess and improve community engagement, and to further enhance health equity components of the MCO contract
• Evaluating and improving equity of language services for Medicaid members

• Engaged with national experts in health equity, representatives from Medicaid Managed Care Organizations andpolicy experts to help identify and address health inequities, by helping them design and implement payment remodeling
• Interviewed leaders in Medicaid Managed Care Organizations to compile a compendium of initiatives thatinnovatively addressed health inequities which were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Organized and presented at national policy and research briefings, meetings, and conferences as a representative of the Institute for Medicaid Innovation

• Implemented and helped design research protocols in a busy clinical center focused on women’s mental health
• Designed and maintained data collection tools like REDCap, and analyzed and managed collected data
• Designed and implemented transition of in-person research to remote collection of psychiatric interviews and biological specimens during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Assisted Principal Investigators with varied administrative and academic duties including Institutional Review Board applications and preparation of abstract, paper and poster submissions

• Assisted in organization of nation-wide collaboration among leaders in reproductive psychiatry for the purpose of developing a National Curriculum in Reproductive Psychiatry (NCRP)
• Co-authored manuscript on the role played by Th17 cells in the pathophysiology of pregnancy and perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (published)

• Designed and managed mixed-methods study in collaboration with psychiatrists, obstetrician- gynecologists andpsychologists with an aim to assess and correct unmet mental health need at obstetric clinics
• Organized and analyzed collected data
• Presented findings at American Public Health Association Conference as a co-author

• Assessed feasibility, acceptability and preliminary outcomes of an intervention based on mindfulness to reduce maternal distress in neonatal intensive care units
• Co-authored manuscript for publication (published)

• Conducted in-depth study of a case of a very rare case of Gamma Heavy Chain Disease (GHCD), and advocated for anticipatory monitoring of Lymphoplasmacytic Lymphoma (LPL) in adults with autoimmune disease
• Authored a case report on a unique case of mono-cryptal colonic adenocarcinoma that did not follow the typical adenoma-carcinoma sequence (not published)
• Conducted a retrospective study of cases diagnosed as hyperplastic polyps prior to the development of diagnostic criteria of sessile serrated polyps/ adenomas (SSP/A)

Clinical Experience

• Observed at the Crisis Stabilization Unit (CSU), an emergency room catering to psychiatric emergencies including suicidal, violent, and critical patients with serious mental illness (SMI)
• Gained experience with mental health care insurance, Virginia’s Governor's Access Plan, which is available to low income, uninsured patients with Serious Mental Illness

• Contributed to data collection for ongoing research on Cardiac Care Unit treatment outcomes
• Presented cases at departmental seminars and at the cardiology clinic
• Observed catheterization lab procedures such as angiography and percutaneous coronary intervention 

• Observed the management of patients at this family practice clinic and familiarized with health insurance use in primary health care

• Worked as a Junior Resident posted as a member of a critical care team of doctors in the Emergency Room (ER) and patient units on a rotating basis
• Made decisions in the initial management and stabilization of emergencies, and management of admitted patients,including procedures such as suturing, intravenous cannulation, catheterization, suture removal

• Handled large patient volumes in a high stress and sometimes resource constrained work environment for a 12-months long rotating internship that included a rural posting of 2-months duration
• Completed rotations: General Medicine for 1.5 months, Psychiatry for 15 days, Pediatrics for 1 month, Casualty for 15 days, General Surgery for 1.5 months, Anesthesiology for 15 days, Orthopedics for 1 month, E.N.T. for 15 days, Ophthalmology for 15 days, Obstetrics and Gynecology for 1.5 months, Family Welfare for 15 days, Skin and Venereal Disease for 15 days, Community Medicine and Drug De-addiction Detoxification for 2 months

Teaching Experience

• Mentored students
• Led group discussions and debates in class
• Created study materials for the class
• Graded student assignments

Publications/Presentations

• Mendelson, T., McAfee, C., Damian, Brar, A., Donohue P., Sibinga, E. Arch Womens Ment Health (2018). 
• Weiss-Laxer, N., Mendelson, T., Kalfoglou, A., Edwardson, J., Brar, A., Bucay, L., Sinit, R., Riley, A.W. North American Society for Psychosocial Obstetrics & Gynecology, (2018). Perspectives of Latina and Non-Latina Urban Obstetrics Patients and Providers on Group-Based Preventive Services for Mental Health Problems.
• Osborne, L.M., Brar, A., Klein, S., Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, (2019). 

Professional Development

• Computer Skills: Microsoft Office Suite, Stata, Dedoose, REDCap
• Languages: English (expert), Hindi (expert), Punjabi (expert)

• Master of public health (MPH) | August 2019 | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA
• Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) | January 2014 | Bharati Vidyapeeth Medical College, Pune, India