Improving suicide risk assessment in a managed-care environment

Crisis. 2003;24(2):49-55. doi: 10.1027//0227-5910.24.2.49.

Abstract

This article describes the quality improvement intervention of a managed behavioral healthcare company to improve the quality of suicide risk assessments by its panel of providers. At-risk cases are identified by the patient's self-reported high frequency of suicidal ideation on a standardized outcome measure. Clinicians also assess severity of suicidal ideation based on clinical interviews. The clinician's assessment is identified as probably erroneous if the patient report indicates a high frequency of suicidal ideation and the clinicians assessment of suicidal ideation is none. The article describes the methods used to encourage clinicians to utilize information from the patient self-report measure as part of the clinical assessment. Probable suicidal ideation assessment errors were subsequently reduced by 29% over a 1-year period of administration.

MeSH terms

  • California
  • Crisis Intervention
  • Diagnostic Tests, Routine
  • Humans
  • Managed Care Programs*
  • Mental Disorders / psychology
  • Quality of Health Care
  • Risk Assessment / trends
  • Suicide, Attempted / prevention & control*
  • Suicide, Attempted / psychology
  • Suicide, Attempted / statistics & numerical data
  • Surveys and Questionnaires