About Your Doctor Program™(YDP)

History

Your Doctor Program ^TM was co-founded by Dr. Kim Dunn and Kevin Dunn after their father became ill in 2001. During that time, they saw how broken the healthcare system was, resulting in avoidable medical errors. They further realized the need for physician intervention to achieve even the simplest of communication for a patient. Their father, who had been a leader in using total quality management in the petrochemical industry in the 1970's and 1980's, worked with them to develop a system that provides a patient:

• assured healthcare access whether or not you have insurance
• a culture of accountability for treatment outcomes
• improved communication among medical practitioners
• translation of medical care for family and friends

The program built on many of the lessons Dr. Dunn learned while transforming the Internal Medicine Services program in the Texas Prison System in the 1990's. The Your Doctor Program ^TM started a piloted program with patients in 2003.   Dr. Ignacio Valdes is a medical doctor, software, and quality control engineer who has been working on quality assurance and electronic medical records software for medicine since 1987. He joined the Your Doctor Program in 2005.  

Executives

                     CEO & Chief Medical Officer -- Kim Dunn MD, PhD Dr. Dunn is a leading authority on outcomes management, telemedicine / health information exchange (HIE), and the adoption of IT in healthcare. She has extensive experience in large physician practice management and developing training and outcomes delivery programs to improve quality of care. Previously, she was responsible for Internal Medicine Services for the Texas Prison System where she was instrumental in implementing telemedicine and outcomes management. She was a founding faculty member of the School of Health Information Sciences where she developed the Applied Health Informatics Programs, established the Research and Development Program for Your Doctor Program, L.P., and served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs until September 2006. She serves on the Boards of the UT Medical School Alumni and the Schull Institute and is a past participant in the Center for Houston’s Future Leadership Forum. She holds degrees in Medicine and PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Texas Health Science Center (1990) and trained at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Internal Medicine.   She has extensive consulting experience in both governmental and businesses domestically and internationally.    

Chief Technology Officer -- Ignacio Valdes, MD, MS Dr. Valdes is a Board Certified Psychiatrist with a twenty year history of working in the healthcare IT arena.  He is an associate professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center Houston's School of Health Information Sciences.  He is the founder of Linux Medical News, and is a national expert on free and open source medical software and interoperability standards. Prior to medical school he worked for IBM and Compaq as a software and quality control engineer as well as his own software company. He is associate professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center Houston’s School of Health Information Sciences. He completed residency training at the University of Texas at Houston Department of Psychiatry (2001), medical school at Southwestern in Dallas (1998). He holds a Master of Science in Computer Science degree from the University of Houston (1991) and a Computer Science degree from Texas A&M (1985).

Chief Technical Architect -- Fred Trotter Mr. Trotter has extensive experience in development of secure internet applications in healthcare (billing, electronic medical records). He has been Director of Internet Security Services for Uversa, a Security Consultant for multiple hospitals and companies including VeriSign. He previously served as the Computer Services Corporation Project Manager for the Air Force Information Warfare Center. He obtained a BS degree in Computer Science as well as two BA degrees in Psychology and Philosophy from Trinity University (1998).

Research and Development

We are always going to strive to develop new methods and processes to assure quality of care for patients.   To foster this, YDP entered into a Research and Development Agreement with the University of Texas at Houston School of Health Information Sciences (UT-SHIS) in 2005.    The projects include the following:

• Evaluation of the Your Doctor Program^TM Learning Environment for Collaborative Multidiscplinary Practice
• Using the Your Doctor Program^TM technology platform for emergency preparedness
• Assessment of the On-Demand Telemedicine for Disease Management
• Impact of the Your Doctor Program ^TM on Satisfaction and Costs of Care
• Mathematical Models for Evaluation of Patient, Physician, and Clinical Variables to Predict Outcomes.  This is a core strategy for the post-market drug surveillance needs
• Applying Your Doctor Program ^TM Model of Primary Care to major healthcare problems- emergency room overcrowding, disease management, prevention into practice
• Applying the Your Doctor Program ^TM Total Quality Management Program to save self-insured employers (SIE) money on their healthcare employee costs

The Your Doctor Program^TM software systems have undergone rigorous usability testing at the UT-SHIS to assure ease of use by patients, doctors, and staff. 

Advisory Board

The Your Doctor Program Advisory Board has many friends and patients to whom we are greatly indebted.  We really appreciate your honest feedback because it helps us help you to have a better healthcare system. 

• Osama Mikhail, Ph.D., Vice President, Strategic Planning, UTHSC-H
• Manfred Sternberg, Chairman, Bluegate
• Darren Rodgers, Senior Vice President, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas
• Dianne Love, Ph.D., University of Houston Clear Lake
• Dana Sellars, IBM
• Jack Smith, MD, Ph.D., School of Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H