Strategies

Use specialized courts to offer criminal offenders with drug dependency problems an alternative to adjudication or incarceration

Use specialized courts to work with parents involved in the child welfare system who may lose custody of their children due to substance abuse

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 medications such as methadone to individuals diagnosed with opioid use disorder in outpatient, residential, and hospital settings, usually with counseling and behavioral therapies; often called MAT

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

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

Conduct individual assessments that gauge older adults’ risk of falling and develop personalized approaches to help prevent falls

Establish state level regulations that require nursing homes to employ at least a set number of licensed and non-licensed nursing staff, often set in terms of staff hours per resident day

Provide sterile injection equipment and often other treatment and referral services to people who inject drugs; also called needle or syringe exchange programs and needle syringe programs