Healthcare Operations Leadership

Della
Miller

VP, Referral Services & Customer Operations
Carrefour Associates LLC

Twenty years building the systems, teams, and frameworks that allow healthcare organizations to scale with the patient at the center of every decision.

40%
Census Growth
<2%
Team Turnover
3,500
Staff Trained
20+
Years Experience
Get in Touch Read My Work
Della Miller
"Well-built systems need experience behind them and courage in front of them."
About

The methodology exists to serve the mission. Not the other way around.

I started my career as a 911 operator — which gave me an early and intimate understanding of what happens when a person in crisis reaches a call taker who is no longer carrying the weight of the moment. That understanding has shaped every contact center, referral team, and operations framework I've built since.

In February 2005 I joined Delaware Hospice as their first non-clinical intake representative — the first point of contact for families navigating one of the most difficult decisions of their lives. I coordinated every aspect of admission to hospice: schedule management, barrier to admission resolution, training, SOP maintenance, staff orientation, documentation, productivity reporting, and coordination of information for the full supportive team assigned to each family. I progressed from Coordinator to Referral Center Supervisor during my tenure.

Under that model, Delaware Hospice grew from 135 to 800 patients — centralizing the DELMARVA region and expanding to two GIP facilities. That growth wasn't incidental. It was the direct result of building a referral infrastructure that referral sources could depend on, consistently, every time they called.

That experience became the proof of concept for everything I've built since. At Crossroads Hospice I saw what it looks like when a rapidly scaling organization keeps patient focus at the helm of every decision. At Carrefour Associates I built the contact center, the retention programs, the operating frameworks, and the technology infrastructure from the ground up — and sustained them across fifteen years of national growth.

I build systems that carry the mission. I build teams that carry the patient. And I build the frameworks that make both sustainable when the pressure is highest.

I am a USAF Reserve Veteran (2003–2014) and a PMP candidate with the Project Management Institute.

Hospice & Palliative Care Contact Center Design HIPAA / CMS Compliance Power Automate Power Apps Python PMP (In Progress) USAF Veteran Delaware Hospice Alumni
40%
Census growth through strategic lifecycle management, proactive engagement, and optimized patient journey design at Carrefour Associates.
<2%
Annual team turnover sustained across 11+ years of operations — through structured development, clear expectations, and consistent accountability.
30%
Reduction in patient service revocations annually from program inception through the Patient Retention Program — 45% within the first 3 months.
$30K+
Monthly savings achieved through voice services, fax network, and SharePoint infrastructure projects — replacing external software contracts with internal solutions.
Services

Where I can help your organization.

I work with healthcare operators, hospice and home health organizations, and multi-location patient care companies who need the systems, frameworks, and team structures to scale without losing what makes them effective.

01
Contact Center Design & Build
Operating model, staffing model, training framework, and growth foundations — built from scratch or rebuilt from the ground up. Includes the CARE documentation framework for referral intake.
02
Operations Manual Development
Mapping your institutional knowledge into documented, transferable systems — goal, SOP reference, assumed knowledge, scope, and panic button processes for every task entry.
03
Referral Strategy & Growth
Consistent response methodology, referral source relationship frameworks, and the structural decisions that protect responsiveness as volume and service lines change.
04
Team Development & Retention
Role clarity, accountability frameworks, training discipline, and the feedback culture that builds future leaders rather than managing turnover.
05
Analytics & Technology Enablement
Self-built dashboards, Power Automate workflows, Power Apps forms, and Python-based data tools — designed for healthcare operations without dedicated IT support.
06
Patient Retention Programs
Proactive engagement models that identify patients at risk of service revocation before escalation — built on data, staffed by empowered teams, and measured against outcomes that matter.
Articles

Writing from twenty years in the work.

These posts are drawn directly from experience — building contact centers, managing referral teams, navigating insurance barriers, and training the people who hold families at their most vulnerable moments. Published on LinkedIn, 2x per week.

Concept
The number one complaint from referral sources isn't about clinical care. It's about consistency.
Post 1 · Week 1
Team & People
Can a Case Manager serve as an assessment RN for a day? Absolutely. Do they want to? Not at all.
Post 2 · Week 1
Systems
In hospice, scale isn't about the bottom line. It's about how far your reach extends into communities where someone is suffering alone.
Post 3 · Week 2
Patient Focus
If insurance is the first question your contact team asks a family calling about hospice, it tells that family exactly what your organization values most.
Post 4 · Week 2
Team & People
I may have a concept of what the end product looks like. My team provides the specifics. That distinction is how you build future leaders.
Post 5 · Week 3
Systems
A referral team is not a cost center. It's a clinical touchpoint.
Post 6 · Week 3
Concept
Understanding the role of every stakeholder before you design a single process.
Post 7 · Week 4
Team & People
Retention has less to do with feeling like a work family and more to do with teamwork. Those are not the same thing.
Post 8 · Week 4
Systems
The operations manual doesn't replace judgment. It reserves judgment for the moments that actually need it.
Post 9 · Week 5
Patient Focus
Families don't leave hospice organizations because they weren't cared for. They leave because what they experienced didn't match what they believed was promised.
Post 10 · Week 5
Team & People
After 1,000 calls, even the most devastating situations can start to feel routine. That's not a character flaw. It's a point of failure.
Post 11 · Week 6
Team & People
When your contact team is underperforming, look at the feedback they are receiving before you look at the team.
Post 12 · Week 6
Concept
When you change a methodology that referral sources have come to trust, they notice before you do.
Post 13 · Week 7
Patient Focus
She sat in the parking lot for a week before she called.
Post 14 · Week 7
Team & People
If your agents have to jump through hoops to help a patient, you've already broken something.
Post 15 · Week 8
Concept
Well-built systems and processes need experience behind them and courage in front of them.
Post 16 · Week 8
Technology

Built without a dedicated IT team.

Every tool below was designed and deployed solo in a live healthcare operations environment — while managing a VP-level role. Self-taught, applied to real business problems, and built to last.

01
Analytics
Patient Assessment Analytics Report
Processed 541 assessment submissions across 424 unique patients — barrier analysis, RN performance dashboards, PPS score risk flags, and six strategic recommendations in boardroom-ready format.
Surfaced "Family Not Ready" as #1 admission barrier at 18.9% of submissions
Word Excel Dashboard
02
Reporting
Marketer & Referral Source Performance Report
Multi-tab Excel workbook analyzing 2024–2025 referral data across marketer books — conversion rates, referral source breakdowns, non-admit analysis, and time-to-assessment distribution patterns.
Enabled targeted coaching at the individual marketer level
Excel Data Modeling
03
Automation
Daily Census Automation Flow
Scheduled Power Automate flow replacing 45 minutes of daily manual outreach — Adaptive Card forms to Teams, supervisor approval routing, automatic SharePoint write, non-response flagging.
Submission compliance from ~70% to 95% within 30 days
Power Automate Teams SharePoint
04
Data Entry
Power Apps Multi-List Referral Entry Form
Unified Power Apps form connected to three separate SharePoint lists — resolved broken dropdown functionality, standardized data entry across three referral teams, eliminated free-text corruption in analytics.
Eliminated data inconsistencies breaking downstream reporting
Power Apps SharePoint
05
Python
Account Data Deduplication & Master List Builder
Python-driven cleanup workflow with custom HTML review interface — identified 51 issues across ~1,000 entries, location-aware logic, side-by-side analyst review tool, full audit trail.
Preserved 49 location-specific accounts across 19 facility groups
Python HTML Fuzzy Matching
06
Real-Time
Real-Time Referral Status Notification System
Power Automate flow triggered by SharePoint changes — routes tailored notifications to support departments via email and clinical leadership via Teams the moment an assessment status updates. No polling, no manual check-ins.
Eliminated chart audit compliance misses; enabled mobile census management
Power Automate SharePoint Teams Outlook
Contact

Let's talk about your organization.

If you're a healthcare operator, hospice or home health leader, or multi-location patient care organization looking to build the systems and teams that carry your mission — I'd like to hear about what you're working on.

Website carepathstrategies.com
Email info@carepathstrategies.com
Phone 901.609.8480
Location Remote — serving national markets
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/dellamiller
Currently VP, Referral Services · Carrefour Associates LLC