Strategies

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

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

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

Use counseling, informational materials, etc. to inform smokers and non-smokers of the harms of secondhand smoke and encourage them to implement home smoking bans

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

Reduce patients’ out-of-pocket costs for tobacco cessation therapies such as nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and cessation counseling participation

Shift the way health care organizations approach trauma by adopting universal trauma precautions and providing trauma-specific care

Create financial incentives or remove financial disincentives to affect consumer choices and incentivize provision of cost efficient health care services

Make water readily available in various settings via regular placement of drinking fountains, water coolers, bottled water in vending machines, etc.