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Promising Practices

The Promising Practices database informs professionals and community members about documented approaches to improving community health and quality of life.

The ultimate goal is to support the systematic adoption, implementation, and evaluation of successful programs, practices, and policy changes. The database provides carefully reviewed, documented, and ranked practices that range from good ideas to evidence-based practices.
Learn more about the ranking methodology.

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BabyFirst Solano (Solano, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: BabyFirst Solano aims to increase the number of women entering early, adequate prenatal care and improve birth outcomes for high-risk populations.

Bob Janes Triage Center and Low Demand Shelter (Fort Myers, FL)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Bob Janes Triage Center and Low Demand Shelter is to reduce the number of individuals with mental illness or substance use disorders who are arrested and sent to the County jail for minor offenses.

Castro Youth Housing Initiative (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Urban

Goal: To meet the housing needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth ages 18-24.

Champions for Children (Seattle, WA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children

Goal: The goal of this program is to improve the quality of child care and education in Seattle.

Chatham County Jail Health Information Exchange

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders

Goal: To have an EMR system that allows medical professionals to correctly diagnose and address the medical needs of incarcerated patients in the emergency room or in the prison system.

Impact: The program has allowed for greater accessibility and sharing of medical data.

Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program - Community Capacity Project (Milwaukee, WI)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Urban

Goal: The CCP is a part of a comprehensive childhood lead poisoning program that seeks to eradicate childhood lead poisoning in Milwaukee by the year 2010.

Cross-Sector Collaboration for Vulnerable Populations Reduces Utilization and Strengthens Community Partnerships

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The objective of this article is to describe Project Restoration's approach to cross-sector collaboration with a shared population of high utilizing community members, describe the process and outcomes of the collaboration, provide strategies to mitigate challenges that arise during collaboration and offer insights to inform similar initiatives in communities nationwide.

Impact: Hospitals across the region are assessing ways to establish a centralized infrastructure to collaboratively address the complexities of individual cases, as well as a regional council to explore process improvements to enhance the lives of vulnerable populations.

Diabetes Community Collaboration Program (Minnesota)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Diabetes

Goal: The goal of the DCCP is to improve diabetes care and education in Minnesota.

Engage DuPage (DuPage County, IL)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: The goals of Engage DuPage include improving the health status of self-pay Emergency Department patients, increasing the revenue appropriately owed to hospitals for services rendered, improving the financial assistance processes involving self-pay Emergency Department patients, and reducing the number of avoidable Emergency Department visits among self-pay patients.

Impact: By the end of 2014, 57% of all benefit applications that were submitted were approved. In addition, 29% of all interested patients were connected to a primary care provider through a Community Access Specialist.

Families Learning and Growing (F.L.A.G.ship) (Marin)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Literacy, Families

Goal: The program's goal is to provide school readiness activities for families with children, from birth to five years old, who live in isolated and under-served areas of Marin County.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success and/or promise in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures of improvement in outcome of interest (i.e. increase in voter registration, not just delivery of voter registration drive) and/ or the outcome measure is increased or improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant.

A Good Idea meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
  2. The program evaluation is limited to descriptive measure(s) of success/accomplishment (i.e., program participation rates, number of services/education sessions/radio messages provided). Note: oftentimes, the program has been newly implemented and a program evaluation has not yet been conducted. Programs that have not yet been evaluated, but which show promise in improving health or quality of life, are classified as Good Ideas until an evaluation is conducted.

An Evidence-Based Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures showing improvement in the outcome(s) of interest after the implementation of the program (i.e. increase in smoking cessation, not just the delivery of a smoking cessation program). The outcome measure(s) is/are compared at relevant time periods before and after the intervention or program implementation. Alternatively, the evaluation study compares the outcome(s) between an intervention group and an appropriate control group.
  3. The study is of peer-review quality and presents numbers in a scientific manner; measurements of precision and reliability are included (e.g. confidence intervals, standard errors), results from statistical tests show a significant difference or change in the outcome measure(s), and relevant point estimates and p-values are presented. Note: if the results from an evaluation of a program are presented in a scientific manner and the outcome measure is improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant, the practice is classified as effective and not evidence-based.