“The Department of Veterans Affairs is leveraging its increasingly sophisticated data analytics capacities to prevent suicide among veterans and provide them the critical support and counseling they need during times of crisis.”
“Speaking at the ACT-IAC Leveraging Data to aid in Suicide Prevention Among Veterans summit, VA providers and behavioral scientists discussed how the agency is using data insights to better inform direct interventions designed to provide veterans with essential care during times of crisis.”
“One of the greatest challenges the agency has tried to address through recent outreach programs has been identifying veterans most at risk of suicide and deliver care before they reach a crisis point. This has been the key focus of the VA’s Public Health Model for Suicide Prevention, commonly referred to as Suicide Prevention 2.0.”
“’Suicide Prevention 2.0 is a public health approach to suicide prevention that is really founded upon three core beliefs. Number one, suicide is preventable; it’s not inevitable. Number two, it’ll take a public health approach to adequately address it. And number three, it will take all of us working together,’ said Matt Miller, VA’s national director of suicide prevention…”
“VA providers are also particularly attentive to the need to bring veterans into its care networks, with an overwhelming proportion of veterans who die by suicide either unable to easily access, or choosing not to receive, VA care…”
“In addition to this focus on expanded clinical support, VA caregivers are developing increasingly sophisticated means of identifying veterans most at risk by developing effective models that highlight patients who might be approaching a crisis point while endeavoring to respect privacy and data protection. This has included ongoing work on the REACH VET system that appends data insights to an intervention program for most at-risk veterans.”
“’REACH VET is a predictive analytic system and procedure that takes a look at over 100 variables and yields results that indicate the highest level of risk within the [Veterans Health Administration],’ Miller said. ‘The Health Administration has a treatment population that converts to about the top 1% at the highest risk for suicidal behaviors. And that converts on a practical basis to about 6,500 individuals per month.'”
“Refining REACH VET, and VA’s over suicide prevention initiatives, has required sophisticated data curation that draws insights from multiple variables and sources — requiring VA providers to draw a wealth of data that provides an accurate portrait of a veteran’s mental health while still respecting basic privacy.”
“’I think the important point here is that you need to consider multiple sources of data. Data from a medical record is great. But there are also other sources of data that perhaps we need to be thinking about when we are developing these analytic tools,’ Marx said…” Read the full article here.
Source: Predictive Analytics Are Supporting Veterans’ Mental Health Treatment – By Adam Patterson, March 5, 2021. GovernmentCIO.
