Utilization of Suicide Prevention Safety Plans Throughout Inpatient Treatment to Reduce Readmission Rates

Suicide prevention is a current focus of our healthcare system and a goal of inpatient psychiatry. A suicide prevention safety plan (SPSP) is among the standards of care for treating a patient with suicidal ideations. Currently, SPSPs are not used as effectively as they could be. This project addressed the use of SPSPs and changed the focus from filling out an SPSP at some point before discharge to utilizing them throughout the hospital stay. In this project, staff members reviewed the SPSP at least once a day with the patient. The goal of the intervention was to have the patient start filling out the SPSP on the first day of admission and update the form as necessary with feedback from the treatment team. Discharging patients received a questionnaire on their discharge day to gather data about the SPSP use during their stay and how comfortable they felt using their SPSP. The discharge questionnaires showed that most patients felt very comfortable with their plan prior to discharge. In a separate questionnaire, staff described how often they addressed the SPSP with their patients. Staff questionnaires indicated that the staff was committed to addressing the SPSP each day with their patients. Readmission data was extracted from the hospital medical record to measure the effect of the daily emphasis on the SPSP. During the one-month measurement period, readmission rates of patients discharged from the intervention hospital matched those during the same period in the previous year but were 17% lower to the same hospital and 44% lower to in-network hospitals than the monthly average during the preceding 12 months. This change suggests that utilizing the SPSP throughout inpatient hospitalization does reduce hospital readmissions. A final conclusion will require further tracking of readmission rates.