Dr. Prakeshkumar Shah

Dr. Prakeshkumar Shah is a neonatologist and clinical epidemiologist at Mount Sinai Hospital and Director of the Canadian Neonatal Network and the International Network for Evaluation of Outcomes of Neonates (iNeo). He holds the CIHR Canada Applied Research Chair in Reproductive and Child Health Services and Policy Research.

He earned an MD degree from Gujarat University and an MSc from the University of Toronto. In 2012 he received the Emerging Leader in Neonatology Award from the Canadian Pediatric Society, while in 2010 he received the Glory of India Award and Certificate of Excellence from the India International Friendship Society.

His research interests include health services research in the perinatal-neonatal field using international, national and local databases; patient- and disease-oriented research in neonatal-perinatal medicine; and knowledge synthesis, involving examining existing knowledge to identify predictors, therapies and diagnostic tests to help improve patient outcomes. An overall goal is understanding our current health services system by refining, re-defining, restructuring and establishing perinatal health datasets at international, national and provincial levels to use them in the most efficient and productive manner, leading to improvement in patient-oriented outcomes.

As head of the iNeo Network he leads a collaboration analyzing data from 246 NICU’s in nine countries to improve outcomes for very low birth weight infants. The Canadian Neonatal Network collects detailed patient level activity on a daily basis and disseminates to users across Canada for surveillance, benchmarking and quality improvement.

His contributions have led to refined understanding of predictors of neonatal complications, improved management of preterm neonates and identification of factors related to preterm and low birth weight births.

Dr. Shah has consulted nationally and internationally on many areas of health care services including pediatric surgery and neonatal transport initiatives as well as on health technology assessments for the government of India. He has published more than 240 articles in peer-reviewed journals.