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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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Partners on the PATH (Grand Rapids, MI)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The project seeks to model how the aging network in partnership with a managed care plan can improve the health outcomes for older adults.

Primary Project: Palm Beach (West Palm Beach, Florida)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: The goals of this program are to detect school adjustment difficulties, prevent social and emotional problems, and enhance learning skills of children in kindergarten through third grade.

Promoting Access to Health (PATH) for Women (Los Angeles, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Cancer, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of this program is to extend lifesaving prevention programs and screening services across a variety of cultures by giving communities the materials and plans to implement an effective intervention while allowing them to execute these plans in a manner and at a pace that resonates with their own culture and community.

Quality Improvement in the Area of Immunizations (Wichita, KS)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of the project was to increase the number of students current with school-required immunizations through utilization of the state immunization registry and increasing the number of parental consent forms received for immunization in School-Located Vaccine Clinics.

Impact: Of 2,015 children not in compliance with school immunization policies, 1,094 (54%) were brought into compliance through state immunization registry records or immunization in School-Located Vaccine Clinics.

Reach Out and Read: Palm Beach (Palm Beach)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: The mission of Reach Out and Read is to help prepare young children to succeed in school, by partnering with physicians to encourage parents and children to read aloud together.

Reading Partners (Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Urban

Goal: Reading Partners mission is to help children become lifelong readers by empowering communities to provide individualized instruction with measurable results.

Safer Choices (California, Texas)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Family Planning, Teens

Goal: The goal of the Safer Choices program is to reduce the number of students engaging in unprotected sexual intercourse.

Impact: The program reduced the frequency of intercourse without a condom, reduced the number of sexual partners with whom students had intercourse without a condom, and increased use of condoms and other protection against pregnancy at last intercourse.

The Eastern Virginia Care Transitions Partnership (Urbanna, VA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults

Goal: Reduce hospital/nursing home readmissions and improve care for older adults.

Impact: Reduced 30-day readmission rate from 18.2 to 8.9 percent over the course of 2 years, resulting in estimated savings of more than $17 million through 1,804 avoided readmissions.

The Strive Partnership (Cincinnati, OH)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Teens, Adults

Goal: The Strive Partnership is focused on the success of children: every child, every step, from cradle to career.

Behavioral Couples Therapy for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse (BCT)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use

Goal: The goal of Behavioral Couples Therapy for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse is to improve success rates for treatment of alcoholism and drug abuse by involving intimate partners in the treatment process.

Impact: Numerous studies of the program have shown positive outcomes in five areas: substance abuse, quality of relationship with partner, treatment compliance, intimate partner violence, and children's psychosocial functioning. BCT clients also reported more relationship satisfaction than non-participants.

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.