Cautious Patient Foundation introduces new national YDA program

Known as "Your Doctor's Advice" (YDA), the program provides an easy-to-use, high-tech solution to a major contributing factor in patient noncompliance and poor medical outcomes.

According to Cari Oliver, M.D., founder of Cautious Patient Foundation, "Studies show that patients forget 30- to 70-percent of what their doctor tells them within minutes of leaving a medical office. With statistics like these, how can we expect good medical results? This is why we developed YDA, a simple, innovative application usable on all cell phones and the Internet."

YDA is presented as an efficient, inexpensive, and easy-to-use tool that requires no additional work on the part of the physician. It captures specific medical advice, which the patient can listen to again and again. "It virtually eliminates the risk of forgetting crucial medical advice and the concept has been used for several years at the Oliver Center at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston," added Dr. Oliver. "We're very excited to offer it now to the general public through YourDoctorsAdvice.org."

"We believe every patient and doctor should have this efficient tool that will help maintain a record and reminder of medical instructions," noted Bill Thatcher, executive director of the Cautious Patient Foundation. "Thus, the foundation is offering the YDA source code free to hospitals and medical institutions throughout the United States."

The initial response and enthusiastic adoption of the program by patients and physicians is extremely encouraging," said Thatcher. "All U.S. doctors are taught to ask patients to repeat their advice before ending a visit. The trouble is, they don't. The YDA application can help change this."

With YDA, patients pull out their cell phones near the end of an office visit, speed-dial the YDA number, and tell their doctor they are leaving a quick oral note covering the advice they've been given. They speak into the cell phone: "Doctor [name] said… and… and… and." Prior to hanging up they ask the doctor, "Is there anything else?" He or she can then elaborate, and the patient can add that to the message before hanging up.

Later, the patient simply logs in to their account on the secure YDA site. The program will have routed the phoned-in recording to his or her account.
They can listen to it again, take notes, or share it with family members. A cell phone can also access the recording.

"YDA has been continually upgraded and refined. The newly launched national YDA program, available to any patient with a cell phone, is already delivering excellent patient interaction. This is certain to promote positive medical outcomes," said Thatcher.