Our Commitment to Mental Health Care with the Zero Suicide Initiative

In May 2023, Trinity Health Ann Arbor and Trinity Health Grand Rapids were two of the hospitals that joined the Suicide Care Collaborative Improvement and Innovation Network (CoIIN). Started by The Pew Charitable Trusts and Education Development Center’s Zero Suicide Institute (ZSI), CoIIN is a network of hospitals that test evidence-informed methods to determine the risk of suicide and ensure that patients get what they need.

Research has shown that nearly half of people who die by suicide interact with the health care system in the month before their death, suggesting a key opportunity to intervene.

Participating hospitals collaboratively learn and share information to improve comprehensive screening and assessment, increase use of suicide care management plans, and provide evidence-informed interventions to patients experiencing suicide risk. The goal: improve suicide prevention and treatment practices by transforming the way hospitals identify and care for at-risk patients.
One year later, those practices, along with the compassionate care patients are accustomed to, continue today.

"We want to be someplace that people feel welcome to come to who are dealing with suicide," Casie Sultana, clinical nurse leader for Trinity Health Grand Rapids, recently told Public News Service. "You feel so alone. It's a very lonely journey and we want people to come seek help and feel welcomed when they do that."

Significant progress has already been made in this space, as Melissa Tolstyka, director of Behavioral Health Services for Trinity Health Ann Arbor, said there has been a 46 percent increase in compliance with comprehensive suicide risk assessments, as well as patients receiving a post-discharge safety plan.

"Our organization really wanted to focus on bringing the behavioral health and the medical services together to enhance our safer suicide care practices for our patients," Tolstyka said, in part.
 

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Learn more about our mental health and substance abuse services.