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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.

Practices that were submitted by local partners are listed first and will have a green box below them that indicates they are local. Users can also use the search features to find promising practices from across the country.

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Nurse Family Partnership (NFP): Palm Beach (West Palm Beach, FL)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women, Urban

Goal: The program has three primary goals:
1) to improve pregnancy outcomes by promoting health-related behaviors;
2) to improve child health, development and safety by promoting competent care-giving; and
3) to enhance parent life-course development by promoting pregnancy planning, educational achievement, and employment.

The program also has two secondary goals: to enhance families' material support by providing links with needed health and social services, and to promote supportive relationships among family and friends.

Impact: The Nurse Family Partnership Program has shown to improve pregnancy outcomes, improve child health and development, and increase economic self-sufficiency.

The Green House Project (USA)

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

Goal: The mission of the Green House Project is to partner with organizations, advocates, and communities to lead the transformation of institutional long-term care by creating viable homes where elders and others enjoy excellent quality of life and quality of care.

Impact: Studies showed that Green House homes are likely to reduce hospitalization rates among residents, and Medicare and Medicaid costs per resident, when compared to residents in traditional nursing homes. Also, nurses are more likely to spend more hours in Green House homes.

Casual Carpool (San Francisco & Alameda Co, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Transportation, Adults, Urban

Goal: The goal of Casual Carpool is to match commuters in order to reduce traffic congestion and to save money for both drivers and passengers by avoiding public transit fees and bridge tolls.

Cervical Cancer Screening and Follow-up (Brevard County, FL)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Women's Health, Women

Goal: The goal of this program is to provide timely, effective, clinically appropriate intervention for abnormal Pap tests at no or very-low cost in order to reduce cervical cancer mortality.

Child Care Executive Partnership (Florida)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Poverty, Children, Families

Goal: The program's mission is to promote public-private partnerships to ensure that the children of Florida are provided safe, high quality, developmentally appropriate and enriching child care while parents work to remain self-sufficient.

Community Aging in Place - Advancing Better Living for Elders (CAPABLE) (Baltimore, MD)

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

Goal: CAPABLE is a 5-month structured home visit program delivered by an occupational therapist (OT), a registered nurse (RN), and a handyman to improve daily function in older adults and to lower the monthly average Medicaid expenditure and likelihood of costly healthcare services.

Impact: This study demonstrates that home visit programs can improve the daily quality of life in aging adults. Additionally, they can lead to a reduction in Medicaid expenditures via lower inpatient costs and lower long-term care costs.

Effect of a housing and case management program on emergency department visits and hospitalizations among chronically ill homeless adults: a randomized trial (Chicago, Illinois)

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

Goal: To assess the effectiveness of a case management and housing program in reducing the use of urgent medical services among homeless adults with chronic medical illnesses.

Impact: For every 100 homeless adults offered the intervention, the expected benefits over the next year would be 49 fewer hospitalizations, 270 fewer hospital days, and 116 fewer ED visits.

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.
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