Strategies

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

Support joint decision making between health care practitioners and patients through shared decision making (SDM); part of patient-centered care

Engage practice coaches or facilitators to work with primary care clinic staff to redesign clinical practices, organize quality improvement efforts, improve communication, share best practices, etc.

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

Adopt laws that hold private property owners who provide alcohol to minors or obviously intoxicated individuals on their property liable if someone is killed or injured as a result

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