about
NSHC History & Founders
NSHC’s Lead Coaches found within their own clinical practices that patients responded positively when engaged in a partnering fashion, where the patient's agenda/concerns/fears guided the engagement conversation, as opposed to the traditional approach of "do as I instruct or prescribe you to do."

NSHC Co-Founders & Lead Coaches

A Co-founder of the National Society of Health Coaches and Principal of Miller & Huffman Outcome Architects, LLC, Melinda is a Certified Health Coach and Health Coaching Consultant for integrating evidence-based health coaching and outcomes into clinical practice and the workplace. She's a best-selling homecare author, writer, educator, and nationally known speaker. Her work as a cardiovascular clinical nurse specialist spanned 30 years of managing intensive care units, co-developing and implementing pharmacy-nursing hospital collaboratives, developing outcome-based disease management and staff development programs for acute and post acute care. She co-developed an outcome-based intervention and documentation system recoginzed by the TN Hospital Association as Innovation in Nursing Practice.
Former Positions:
Director of Disease Management for Amedisys, Inc., Asst. Patient Care Administrator for Southern TN Medical Center; Director of Nursing Education, Motlow College in Lynchburg, TN.
Education:
Books and Publications:
Disease Management: Gold Nuggets to Success! Best Seller: Implementing Outcome-Based Homecare: A Workbook of OBQI, Care Pathways, Disease Management, Home Health Outcomes & Pay for Performance, and Evidence-based Health Coaching for Healthcare Providers, 1st-4th Editions.
She's a former member of the QIO National Technical Expert Panel and contributor to Quality Insights Care Transitions Best Practice Intervention Packages. She writes for nationally known peer-reviewed journals, newsletters, guest blogs, and magazines on evidence-based health coaching, patient engagement, evidence-based practice for chronic condition management and healthcare outcomes.

A Co-founder of the National Society of Health Coaches (NSHC) and Principal of Miller & Huffman Outcome Architects, LLC. A Tenured healthcare executive, author, speaker, and Certified Small Business Consultant. Colleen has 27+ years creating and executing outcome-based clinical models and operational processes, evidence-based disease management programs, clinical software, and integrated IT strategies across the healthcare spectrum to meet complex clinical and financial outcome goals.
Former Positions:
Senior Vice President of Clinical Services, Regulatory Compliance & Disease Management - Amedisys, Inc.; Director of Disease Management - Columbia Homecare; Director of The Diabetes Center for Excellence and Adult Critical Care - Columbia Hospital System.
Education:
Graduate of the University of Toledo and Covenant College with degrees in Nursing and Business.
Books and Publications:
Health Coaching Business Start-up: A Resource Guide for Clinicians, Evidence-based Health Coaching for Healthcare Providers, 3rd. & 4th Eds.; Evidence-based Interventions & Decision Support for the Management of Chronic Conditions in OASIS-C; BluePrints for Chronic Condition Prevention & Management; Evidence-based Health Management & Prevention Teaching Booklets for clinicians and consumers; Researcher/Developer of the Teletriage Symptom Reference contained in the Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services (CMS) Quality Insights Home Health Telehealth Reference; Contributing author of Implementing Outcome-Based Home Care; a Workbook of OBQI, Care Pathways, and Disease Management.