Nursing

Website spotlight: Suicide risk: Solutions to rapid assessment and documentation

Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education, January 13, 2012

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In November 2010, The Joint Commission issued a Sentinel Event Alert requiring all hospitals to screen patients who do not present with a primary mental health diagnosis and are treated in general hospitals in medical-surgical units and the ED, in addition to those patients who are admitted after a suicide attempt and are a known risk.

The alert comes after suicide has ranked in the top five most frequently reported events to The Joint Commission since 1995.

Of the 827 inpatient ­suicides reported to The Joint Commission's Sentinel Event Database since 1985, 14.25% occurred in the nonbehavioral health units of general hospitals (e.g., medical-surgical units, ICU, oncology, telemetry), 8.02% occurred in the EDs of general hospitals, and 2.45% occurred in other nonpsychiatric settings such as home care, critical access hospitals, and long-term care hospitals.

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