Mental Health Awareness Month: How DSS is Advancing Mental Health Care for the VA
Since 1949, Mental Health Awareness Month has been observed in the United States. Hosted by Mental Health America (MHA), this annual observance increases awareness about the vital role mental health plays in the overall health and well-being of Americans.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is honoring Mental Health Awareness Month with its “I Am Present, Thriving, Motivated, Healing, Connected, Balanced and Recovering” campaign. This effort showcases Veterans sharing how mental health support helped them manage their symptoms and stay present.
When it comes to dealing with Veteran mental health care, the VA is prioritizing providing critical care for post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder), anxiety, depression, substance abuse, bipolar disorder, and suicide prevention.
The latter is a critical focus area for the VA.
Last November, the VA released its 2023 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Report, which noted that 6,392 veterans died by suicide in 2021 – an increase of 114 suicides from 2020. Though this report noted a few positive trends. Specifically, the suicide rate fell by 8.1 percent for male Veterans ages 75 years and older. In addition, the suicide rate for Veterans ages 55 to 75 years old who recently received care from the Veterans Health Administration fell by 2.2 percent.
Fortunately, advanced, and emerging technologies can play a vital role in enhancing suicide prevention and overall mental healthcare efforts for the VA. DSS Strategic Advisor Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen recently authored a GovExec guest article that dives into the topic, and further discusses the topic in this Fed Health Forward podcast interview.
DSS has been a longstanding partner to VA in building a safer future for Veterans by creating a wide range of innovative solutions.
For example, our Patient Case Manager High Reliability Organization (PCM HRO) solution leverages real-time data and analytics needed in achieving excellence on VA performance and outcomes measures while protecting high-risk patients. PCM HRO has helped the VA strengthen its suicide prevention efforts and supports the VA’s journey towards becoming a High Reliability Organization (HRO).
In addition, as part of PCM HRO, PCM’s Suicide Prevention Manager standardizes workflows and combines data visualization tools and analytics to reduce Veteran suicide prevention care variation. For example, this solution streamlines VA suicide prevention coordinator and case manager workflows and automates the monitoring of Veterans at high risk for suicide.
When a Veteran has elevated suicide risk in a VA emergency department (ED) environment, VA staff must complete a safety plan for that Veteran before they leave the ED should they be discharged home. The effectiveness of this process is tracked by the VA’s Safety Planning in the Emergency Department (SPED) metric.
Facilities implementing PCM HRO have seen significant improvement in their SPED performance, underscored by documented achievement of sustained periods of 100% compliance. This improvement results in better care for our Veterans. Critical improvements like these are possible because of the improved situational awareness facilities attained via the real-time clinical care intelligence provided by PCM HRO.
In addition, to support the ongoing need for behavioral health care tools and resources at the VA, DSS also offers the most complete and versatile solution for managing and documenting the care and treatment of mental health patients. This documentation tool facilitates the creation, review, and updating of intake notes and interdisciplinary recovery-based treatment plans – fully addressing treatment planning gaps at VA facilities.
DSS is also exploring cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to improve Veteran mental health care. For example, here are insights from our thought leaders on the value and impact of Emotion AI on mental health care.
DSS also participated in the VA’s Mission Daybreak, a $20 million grand challenge to reduce Veteran suicides. Our submission offered a multidimensional approach to detect suicidal ideation in real-time using Machine Learning (ML) techniques.
Tackling mental health care at the VA is no small challenge. Fortunately, Mental Health Awareness month provides an opportunity to raise awareness around this key issue, and spotlight solutions that can provide the critical mental healthcare that our Veterans deserve.
To learn more about how DSS supports the VA and Veterans, please click here.