Background The National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW) has developed guidelines for disease prevention, which include interventions to reduce smoking, hazardous use of alcohol, insufficient physical activity and unhealthy diet.

Context To support the implementation of these guidelines, the Government has commissioned the NBHW to disseminate knowledge, create Web-based training, and ensure data access and methodological development.

Description of Best Practice Implementation of guidelines for disease prevention deserves a comprehensive approach, since it involves most health care settings and professions. The NBHW coordinates national stakeholders, including decision makers at the regional level, in several networks. Organisations for health professionals such as doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and dieticians, receive support to disseminate knowledge of the guidelines among their members. Other ways of disseminating knowledge include information on the NBHW website and leaflets for patients, managers and professionals. The NBHW will also develop a Webb-based training for health care professionals, covering the methods recommended in the guidelines. To support improvements in methods for disease prevention, research groups have been awarded financial support, for example to study how P4P can be used to improve implementation of guidelines and how to support patients with special needs. Furthermore, the NBHW supports harmonisation of registration and reporting on data. The NBHW will also publish a national assessment and evaluation, in order to identify differences between regions regarding organisational factors, processes, clinical outcomes and costs.

Lessons Learned We will share our experiences of a comprehensive approach, targeting decision makers, health care professionals and patients, and discuss challenges when translating guidelines into health care.