Strategies

Provide educational and behavioral interventions that support patients’ ability to actively manage their condition(s) in everyday life

Establish national standards for the colors of patient wristbands used to alert health care providers about specific conditions such as allergies or elevated fall risk

Provide a fixed, multi-component set of fall prevention interventions to older adults, usually in community settings, without an individualized risk assessment

Protect underground water resources via regular groundwater monitoring, education about risks to groundwater, water quotas and taxes, and other efforts

Use visual tools to prompt safe practices, standardize communication, and ensure no step is forgotten before, during, or after a medical procedure or other health care situation

Use pervious concrete, porous asphalt, permeable interlocking pavers, open-jointed blocks or cells, or other permeable pavement in individual or commercial development efforts; also called porous or pervious pavement

Establish programs that accept expired, unwanted, or unused medicines from designated users and dispose of them responsibly

Make health care facilities’ health care-associated or hospital-acquired infection (HAI) rates readily available to patients and providers

Use ready-made or home constructed barrel systems to collect and store rainwater from rooftops that would otherwise flow to storm drains and streams

Establish bioretention systems (e.g., rain gardens, bioretention cells, green roofs, planter boxes, bioswales, etc.) to make city landscapes more permeable to help control stormwater