Practical Strategies for Preventing Provider Suicide

Physicians and other providers are particularly vulnerable to negative mental health effects and increased suicide risk during the COVID-19 pandemic, likely due to balancing the duty of caring for their patients and the concern for their own health and wellbeing and that of their friends and family.

This training provides specific Suicide Safer Care techniques to help support your primary care providers and team members through systematic and organizational approaches to address suicide risk and prevent deaths by suicide among employees. Learn how to create a response plan that can be applied during the COVID-19 pandemic to help your organization help reduce the risk for suicide across your providers and team members.

This session on preventing provider suicide was hosted on Wednesday, May 6, 2020.

Presenters:

  • Virna Little, PSyD, LCSW-r, SAP, CCM, Chief Operating Officer, Concert Health
  • Becky Stoll, Vice President, Crisis & Disaster Management, Centerstone

Learn More about Suicide Prevention in Primary Care

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, and the suicide rate continues to increase. Contrary to popular belief, mental illness or depression account for less than half of suicide deaths in the United States. The main factors that contribute to suicide deaths include: relationship problems, substance use, physical illness and chronic conditions, job loss, and financial troubles. The link between suicide and the social determinants of health suggests that primary care providers are in a position to identify the risk of suicide as well as intervene with patients who they deem are at risk for suicide.

Using the Zero Suicide framework as a foundation, ACU created the Suicide Safer Care curriculum to train primary care providers and their teams on skills for suicide risk assessment, evidence-based interventions, referral and transition when needed, and how to change the culture of addressing suicide risk across the clinician’s practice. Find a toolkit, archived webinars, and more on our Suicide Safer Care page.