Study may help Department of Veteran’s Affairs find patients with high risk of suicide

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Clinicians are challenged every day to make difficult decisions regarding patients’ suicide risk. Using Veterans Health Administration (VHA) health system electronic medical record data, Veterans Affairs (VA) and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) scientists were able to identify very small groups of individuals within the VHA’s patient population with very high, predicted suicide risk — most of whom had not been identified for suicide risk by clinicians. Such methods can help the VHA to target suicide prevention efforts for patients at high risk, and may have more wide-ranging benefits.