K. Melissa Smith Hayes, DNP, ANP-BC, CHFN, is a board-certified Adult Nurse Practitioner and a certified heart failure nurse. Melissa began her nursing career in 1992 at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the Medical Intensive Care Unit after graduating from Harding University with her BSN. Melissa earned her MSN degree from Vanderbilt University in 1994 and her DNP degree from Duke University in 2013. Heart Failure became Melissa’s primary area of interest in 2001 during her role as a nurse practitioner in the Vanderbilt Heart Failure Program. Currently, Melissa is a full-time Assistant Professor of Nursing at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, teaching in the Adult Gerontology Primary Care program and the Doctoral of Nursing Practice program. She is passionate about educating future nurse practitioners about managing heart failure and recently co-edited a textbook titled Managing Heart Failure in Primary Care: A Case Study Approach. Her scholarly interests also include heart failure post-hospitalization care and literacy-appropriate heart failure education. Melissa maintains a clinical practice with urban underserved heart failure patients. Melissa is actively involved with the American Association of Heart Failure Nurses (AAHFN) and is chair of the Together in Heart Failure (TIHF) website task force which is managed by AAHFN as part of the Heart Failure Patient Foundation. Heart failure is the subject for most of Melissa’s many podium presentations and poster presentations and the local and national level.