Dr. Sanjeev Arora, MD, MACP, FACG is the Director and Founder of Project ECHO. He is a Distinguished and Regents’ Professor of Medicine with tenure in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center (UNMHSC).
Born in Nangal India, Dr. Arora was raised in a household of physicians which gave him a strong sense of responsibility to give back to his community and country from an early age. In 1980, he moved to New York and later Boston to study medicine and become a GI doctor.
As part of a distinguished career at UNMHSC, in 2003, Dr. Arora developed the ECHO model and founded Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) as a way to dramatically improve both capacity and access to specialty care for rural and underserved populations.
Dr Arora launched Project ECHO in 2003 as a healthcare initiative before expanding into other domains. It grew out of his vision as a liver disease specialist at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque, when he was frustrated that he could serve only a fraction of the hepatitis C patients in the state. He wanted to serve as many patients with hepatitis C as possible, so he created a free, educational model and mentored community providers across New Mexico in how to treat the condition.
Recently, Dr. Arora was named the 2021 Laureate for the Brock Prize in Education Innovation.