We're Excited to Make an Impact with You at AAS24! The Zero Suicide Institute at EDC will be at AAS from May 5th-10th. We'll be presenting at three sessions, all on May 9th.

Our Sessions:

1. How Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Cycles Improve Suicide Care

When: May 9th, 9:15- 10:15am   

Presented by: Zero Suicide Institute's Laurin Jozlin and Barbara Gay

Description: During this session you will learn about innovative ideas that healthcare systems are implementing to improve suicide care in their systems. These ideas are rooted in the Zero Suicide Framework while using structure quality improvement approaches. Then you will get a chance to think about how you may want to take some of the ideas and use them in your own health systems to better the care for patients in small ways that can grow and spread to sustainable change.

Slides: Access Slides Here

Video: Seven Elements of Zero Suicide

Session 1 Resources: How Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Cycles Improve Suicide Care

• The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Worksheet: A useful quality improvement tool for documenting a test of change.
• Zero Suicide Toolkit: The Zero Suicide model operationalizes the core components necessary for health care systems to transform suicide care into seven elements. The Toolkit uses research, tools, and videos to walk implementers through putting the Zero Suicide model into practice.
• Toolkit Adaptations: Zero Suicide is an adaptable model appropriate for a range of health and behavioral health settings and applicable across populations. Toolkit Adaptations are designed to complement the Zero Suicide Toolkit by filtering each element through a setting- and population-specific lens.
• Getting Started: Wondering how to get started with Zero Suicide in your organization? This resource outlines 10 steps to getting started.
• Organizational Self Studies: The Organizational Self-Study is designed to assess what components of the comprehensive Zero Suicide approach are currently in place and the degree to which the components are embedded within key organizational and clinical areas. The Organizational Self-Study also helps to assess organizational and clinical area-specific strengths and opportunities for development across each component
• Data Dashboard: Zero Suicide Data Dashboard is intended to assist health and behavioral health care organizations in developing a data-driven, quality improvement approach to suicide care by allowing organizations to enter, edit, and monitor their data specific to their implementation of the Zero Suicide model. 
• Suicide Care Insights: In Suicide Care Insights: Stories & Tips for Your Implementation, we've identified six topics related to workforce wellbeing and how safe suicide care can transform organizational culture. We present them here to you as a series of six resources using a mixed-media approach. Three of the resources are in the form of recorded stories. The other three are downloadable tips on how and what to implement to support and improve care for patients.
• Populations Resources: Quick access to resources supporting safe suicide care for specific populations.
• Settings Resources:Quick access to resources supporting safe suicide care for specific settings.
• Science of Improvement on a Whiteboard: A video summary explaining fundamental improvement methods and tools: Model for Improvement, PDSA cycles, run charts, control charts, flowcharts, driver diagrams, and more.

2. Creating Suicide Safer Care Environments: How to Plan And Measure Success Using the Updated 2023 Oregon Zero Suicide Implementation Assessment Tool

When: May 9th, 12:45- 1:45pm

Presented by: Zero Suicide Institute's Shelby Kuhn along with Aliza Tuttle, Masters Urban Studies; Karen Cellarius, MPA, Portland State University Human Services Implementation Lab; and Meghan Crane, MPH, Oregon Health Authority

Description: In 2023, Portland State University and Oregon Health Authority collaborated with the Zero Suicide Institute and local counties to expand the existing tool for assessing and implementing Zero Suicide in health systems. Attendees will be introduced to the tool and its expanded focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), Just Culture, Workforce Wellness, and Postvention. Methodologies for using the tool are designed to be inclusive and prevent any unintended consequences of its use. Zero Suicide is a system-wide framework with processes to identify individuals at risk, engage them in evidence-based care, and demonstrate quality outcomes to drive continuous process improvement.

Slides: Access Slides Here

Video: Seven Elements of Zero Suicide

Session 2 Resources: Creating Suicide Safer Care Environments

• Zero Suicide Toolkit: The Zero Suicide model operationalizes the core components necessary for health care systems to transform suicide care into seven elements. The Toolkit uses research, tools, and videos to walk implementers through putting the Zero Suicide model into practice.
• Organizational Self Studies: The Organizational Self-Study is designed to assess what components of the comprehensive Zero Suicide approach are currently in place and the degree to which the components are embedded within key organizational and clinical areas. The Organizational Self-Study also helps to assess organizational and clinical area-specific strengths and opportunities for development across each component
• Data Dashboard: Zero Suicide Data Dashboard is intended to assist health and behavioral health care organizations in developing a data-driven, quality improvement approach to suicide care by allowing organizations to enter, edit, and monitor their data specific to their implementation of the Zero Suicide model. 
• Suicide Care Insights: In Suicide Care Insights: Stories & Tips for Your Implementation, we've identified six topics related to workforce wellbeing and how safe suicide care can transform organizational culture. We present them here to you as a series of six resources using a mixed-media approach. Three of the resources are in the form of recorded stories. The other three are downloadable tips on how and what to implement to support and improve care for patients.

3. State Perspectives on Zero Suicide: Lessons Learned from Four Unique Journeys

When: May 9th, 2:00- 3:00pm 

Presented by: Zero Suicide Institute's Barb Gay along with Quinn Lewandowski, MS, University of Nebraska Public Policy Center; Meghan Crane, MPH, Oregon Health Authority; Betsy Hammar, MS, Idaho Department of Health & Welfare and Charity Lee, MSW, Alaska Division of Behavioral Health

Description: Zero Suicide is a best-practice, quality improvement model for safer suicide care in healthcare settings, proving effective at reducing deaths by suicide. State agencies have recognized their unique role in supporting health systems in Zero Suicide implementation and play a crucial role in improving safe suicide care practices. This presentation will showcase the distinctive paths taken by four states in their efforts to establish Zero Suicide programs, highlighting their various implementation approaches, contrasting the nuances between rural and urban settings, exploring strategies for collaboration, challenges faced, and lessons learned along the way.

Slides: Access Slides Here

Video: Seven Elements of Zero Suicide

Session 3 Resources: State Perspectives on Zero Suicide

Alaska Resources:

• Alaska Suicide Prevention Conference: This website contains past recordings of presentations held by Alaska Suicide Prevention. Contains a number of indigenous-focused content
• Alaska Statewide Suicide Prevention Council: This council advises the governor and legislature on suicide-related issues. This resource contains facts and statistics, updates on the statewide suicide prevention plan, and a postvention guide.
• Alaska Department of Health Suicide Prevention: The state suicide prevention program offers resources, grants, and trainings for communities and individuals. Includes community-based suicide prevention programs, postvention projects, training opportunities, and more.
• 988 Create: Hosted by The Youth Alliance for a Healthier Alaska, this art campaign themed “healing and support” was created to increase mental health awareness, and to promote the 988 crisis line for suicide prevention. 
• Alaska Native Health Board: This statewide advocacy organization voices the health needs and concerns of Alaska Native people while emphasizing the importance of self-determination in healthcare services and encouraging wellness and healthy ways of life in Native communities through policy change.
• Alaska Native Collaborative Hub for Research on Resilience: This collaborative serves to establish a communication hub across the state. Focusing on the strengths of Alaska Native people, the collaborative aims to use research to increase community health and create programs to prevent suicide, as well as develop and sustain the capacity for research that is community-driven, Alaska Native-led, and grounded by indigenous culture and knowledge.
• Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium-Suicide Prevention: This program collaborates with community partners and Tribal health organizations within the Alaska Native Tribal Health System to provide evidence-based trainings and education regarding suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. This program provides Tribal partners with access to suicide prevention best practices.  
• Messages of Hope: Promoting Wellness to Prevent Suicide in Alaska, 2023-2027 Statewide Suicide Prevention Plan: This five-year plan provides recommendations to inform statewide suicide prevention efforts, identifies ways Alaskans can prevent suicide, and offers resources and referral information on prevention, services, support and crisis care.

Oregon Resources:

• Addressing Firearm Safety with Patients at Risk of Suicide Course: This free course is designed to help primary care physicians and other types of healthcare providers working in rural settings develop better communication skills, comfort, and confidence when having conversations about firearm safety with patients who are suicidal.
• People Who Love Guns Love You Brochure: Developed based on focus groups with rural and remote firearm owners, this brochure serves to identify warning signs that someone may be at risk for suicide and provide readers with actionable next steps.
• Suicide Prevention and Intervention for Latine Communities for Licensed Mental Health Professionals: This three-hour engaging, self-paced, and on-demand training for mental health professionals focuses on using culturally responsive practices to improve suicide prevention, assessment, and intervention for Latine individuals. Free for Oregon professionals or those licensed in Oregon (available for a fee for non-Oregon residents).
• Oregon Zero Suicide Implementation Assessment Tool: Adaptation of the Zero Suicide Institute Organizational Assessment. Able to provide individual systems with reports and create deidentified cross-site report to show areas of success and gaps to identify state supports. Currently piloting addition of key informant interviews, adaptation of Workforce Survey, consumer survey, and site visit with final report to provide more comprehensive individual system report.
• A Culture Gap in the United States: Implications for Policy on Limiting Access to Firearms for Suicidal Persons: This article examines potential outcomes of public health strategies in the US that encourage limiting access to firearms for populations who value firearm ownership and are vulnerable to suicide. It argues that attempts to limit access to firearms among those at risk will only succeed when the most affected cultural groups are engaged in collaborative discussions.
• Addressing the Cultural Challenges of Firearm Restrictions in Suicide Prevention: A Test of Public Health Messaging to Protect Those at Risk: This research examines the effects of culturally-specific suicide prevention messages on the likelihood of restricting firearm access during periods of suicide risk. Its findings highlight the importance of attending to cultural factors in public health messaging.
• Affirming Cultural Values for Health: The Case of Firearm Restriction in Suicide Prevention: This research addresses the direct influence of culturally competent messaging on engaging in suicide prevention behaviors.  
• A Mortality Surveillance Collaboration Between a Health System and Public Health Department: This article describe a collaboration between a health system and public health department to create a mortality surveillance system that identified more than six times the number of deaths than local system medical records alone.
• Cross‐Site Progress in Implementation for 3 Healthcare Systems: This graphic looks at Zero Suicide implementation for 3 healthcare systems in Oregon, following their average implementation scores at baseline and at various follow-ups.