Boston Children’s Hospital has expanded suicide prevention protocols across its clinical settings as part of its participation in the the Preventing Youth Suicide Collaboration.
The hospital joined the collaboration in 2023, a national effort developed by the Cardinal Health Foundation, the Children’s Hospital Association and the Zero Suicide Institute to help children’s hospitals improve identification and care for at-risk youths, according to an Aug. 29 news release from the Children’s Hospital Association. During the pandemic, Boston Children’s had launched a quality improvement initiative aligned with the Zero Suicide framework.
The hospital’s suicide prevention protocol includes standardizing screening, assessment and safety planning tools, including the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale, Suicide Assessment Five-step Evaluation and Triage, the Stanley-Brown Safety Planning Intervention and an inpatient psychiatric unit safety scale.
More than 600 behavioral health clinicians have been trained in the Zero Suicide model, and the protocol is in use at all three of the hospital’s primary care sites, according to the release.
