Melissa Cardine and Jennifer Whalen have extensive knowledge of the healthcare system. Melissa holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing with over 20 years of nursing experience. Melissa’s passion is listening to patients, families and caregivers and collaborating with other healthcare professionals. She has done that at every turn in a nursing career that spans from complex home health care services and hospital nursing to opening a nationally recognized outpatient treatment center. Jennifer has a similar passion for outstanding patient care and has experienced the frustration of the healthcare system from many angles. She is a licensed physician assistant who has worked in primary care and hospital medicine and holds a Doctorate of Health Sciences.

After many years at the bedside, Melissa decided to follow her passion and started a private patient advocacy business in 2015, The Bridge RN Patient Advocates, which found enormous success. Jennifer and Melissa’s paths merged when Melissa hired Jennifer to help her expand her patient advocacy business. She trained Jennifer to work as an advocate and taught her to run the business. Because Melissa and Jennifer believe in the profound value of patient advocacy and its ability to transform the healthcare experience, they created The Bridge Health Advocates in 2019 to train medical professionals and others to work as private patient advocates. They work to guide the evolution of the patient advocate profession by building a dynamic community of professional patient advocates through unparalleled advocacy and business training.