What is Zero Suicide?

People who die by suicide are touching our healthcare system: 84% of those who die by suicide have seen a healthcare provider in the year before their death. 92% of those who made a suicide attempt have seen a healthcare provider in the year before their attempt. Safer suicide care requires transformative change that cannot be borne solely by the practitioners providing clinical care; it requires a system-wide approach to improve outcomes and close gaps.   

The Zero Suicide framework is based on this realization that suicidal individuals often fall through the cracks in a sometimes fragmented and distracted healthcare system. The framework offers healthcare systems a systematic approach to quality improvement to caring for those at risk for suicide that addresses these gaps in care. 

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Webinar Description 

Health care systems that have used the Zero Suicide framework have seen a 65 to 75% reduction in patient deaths. This presentation will demonstrate how PDSA cycles can help with the overall adoption of Zero Suicide and integration of Zero Suicide into healthcare systems. 

Learning about the Zero Suicide framework, the SC CoIIN methodology, and additional online free resources will provide both risk management and patient safety professionals with guidelines that will assist in meeting accreditation requirements. They will also learn about activities to test out changes in their own system towars improved suicide care. 

Learning Objectives 

This presentation will equip participants to implement the Zero Suicide Framework in their organizations through structured, rapid-cycle PDSA testing and the tracking of data to better care for patients. At the conclusion of this session, attendees will understand the basics of Zero Suicide and how PDSA cycles can be utilized within the framework. Specifically, learners will be able to:

• Identify and develop strategies to implement innovative system-level change to improve suicide care in their health system.
• Use Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles to help improve suicide care.
• Identify key measures to track in their own system to support improvement in suicide care.

Resources

• 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.