Strategies

Use databases, housed in state agencies, to track prescribing and dispensing of Schedule II, III, IV, and V drugs and other controlled substances

Make pricing for hospital procedures and other health care services publicly available, often via websites, online databases, report cards, or similar tools

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 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

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

Provide reproductive health care services such as counseling, contraception, and testing in middle and high school-based health centers

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