Pedro Velasquez Rodriguez

Pedro Velasquez is the Executive Director of Lifedoc Health. Him and his family migrated to Memphis, TN from Venezuela in 1997 to be treated at St. Judes Children’s Research Hospital for Leukemia. After being cured in 2001, his parents decided to stay in Memphis and give back to the community that embraced them by opening up a Primary Care clinic. Pedro went to college at Florida International University and Graduated in 2013 with a Bachelors Degree in International Business.

His career in healthcare started in 2010 with a Data migration project where he digitized an 8,000 patient pediatric practice into an EMR system. In 2011, he created a healthcare membership for the uninsured population which allowed them to get access to all the services offered for 50%-90% off. In 2012 he coordinated and executed the migration and training for the organization from an antiquated server based EMR to eClinicalWorks, which has been recognized as one of the top EHR systems available. In 2013, Pedro opened a practice management company, Darsalud Management, LLC. This company offers billing, call center, accounting, HR, Recruiting, Inventory, and other administration and management services to providers. Since then, he has dedicated his career to implement health equity and care coordination models for all patients regardless of any socio-economic factors. Through these efforts he successfully negotiated and implemented value based contracting with all three MCOs in Tennessee and received NCQA Patient Centered Medical Home certifications for Darsalud Care and LifeDOC.

Most recently, Pedro has invested a significant part of his time and energy into population health strategies that allow the organization to scale its outcomes to the general public by addressing the various social determinants of health. Some of the projects with this include:

• a school based delivery system where he has partnered with the Mid-South Food Bank, Universities, and various other Strategic partners to deliver health risk assessments, Care Coordination, Nutrition education, and 50+ lbs of healthy food to participating families in the Green Dot Charter School system
• He has implemented a mobile food pantry in a “Food is Medicine” initiative for patients. Through this program patients that are seen each week can receive copious amounts of fresh produce and other health food products at the clinic.
• He has planned and implemented a virtual medicine platform that addresses various social determinants of health factors for the patient population he serves.
• He has also facilitated the transition of Darsalud Care, from a for profit corporation to a Non-Profit.

Through these projects, and those that have not yet been executed, Pedro hopes to shape the healthcare industry and enhance the delivery system of quality, coordinated, and integrated Preventive Care.