Strategies

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

9 Strategies
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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

Nurse practitioner scope of practice

Use regulation to extend nurse practitioners’ (NPs’) scope of practice to provide care to the full scope of their training and skills without physician oversight, especially for primary care
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Societal Rules

  • Laws and policies
  • Worldviews, culture and norms

Nurse-friendly work environments

Improve work environments for nurses via establishment of strong nursing leadership, organizational support, etc.
Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices

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

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 quality performance

Make clinician, hospital, clinic, long-term care facility, and insurance plan performance on health care quality measures publicly available via report cards, reporting websites, or similar tools
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices
  • Laws and policies

Trauma-informed health care

Adopt universal trauma precautions and provide trauma-specific care to patients in health care organizations
Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices
  • Worldviews, culture and norms