What are Best Practices?

Best Practices are systematically developed evidence-based statements which assist providers, recipients and other stakeholders to make informed decisions about appropriate health interventions. Health interventions are defined broadly to include not only clinical procedures but also public and global health actions, strategies, and processes. Best Practices are formal advisory statements which should be robust enough to meet the specific circumstances and constraints in a wide variety of situations to which they are being applied. (From WHO Practice Guidelines: Recommended Processes)

Goals unique to our initiative could therefore include:

  1. To promote best practices that are consistent with a biblical understanding of health, which acknowledges the significant role that spiritual health plays in the well-being of people.
  2. To assist medical and community health missions in meeting the requirements for compliance with existing WHO international standards and guidelines, especially those based on the work of Christian missionaries.
  3. To demonstrate how missions are implementing best practices from a Christian, biblical perspective.
  4. To provide a means for Christian missionaries to publish their best practices related work. (Similar to the Christian Medical Commission’s journal “Contact.”–For example, these articles from Christian missionaries were the very foundation of the WHO’s extensive standards and guidelines for Primary Care)

For further explanations:
1. International Standards and Practice Guidelines and Health Missions
2. GUIDELINES for WHO Guidelines
3. WHO handbook for guideline development
4. About WHO guidelines
5. Best Practices in Global Health Missions (BPGHM) Publication Guidelines