Strategies

What Works for Health includes evidence-informed strategies to create communities where everyone can thrive.

12 Strategies
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Chronic disease self-management (CDSM) programs

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

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Community-based doulas

Provide culturally appropriate non-medical care and support throughout pregnancy, birth, and postpartum to birthing people at higher risk of poor outcomes and underserved by the medical community
Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Societal Rules

  • Worldviews, culture and norms

Cultural competence training for health care professionals

Increase health care providers’ skills and knowledge to understand and respond to cultural differences, value diversity, etc. via factual information, skills training, and other efforts
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Societal Rules

  • Worldviews, culture and norms

Culturally adapted health care

Tailor health care to patients’ norms, beliefs, and values, as well as their language and literacy skills
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices
  • Worldviews, culture and norms

Hospital wristband color standardization

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
Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Multi-component fall prevention interventions for older adults

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

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Patient navigators

Provide culturally sensitive assistance and care coordination, and guide patients through available medical, insurance, and social support; also called systems navigators
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices

Patient safety checklists

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
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Professionally trained medical interpreters

Provide interpretation services for patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) in outpatient and inpatient health care settings, following training and certification
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices

Public reporting of health care-associated infections

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

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices