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

Implement multi-component efforts that include coordination of health services by multidisciplinary teams of health care professionals, patient self-management, and patient education

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

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

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

Involve consumers in health care governance via roles on governing boards, advisory committees, or shorter-term special projects

Tailor health care to patients’ norms, beliefs, and values, as well as their language and literacy skills

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

Increase patients’ health-related knowledge via efforts to simplify health education materials, improve patient-provider communication, and increase overall literacy

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.