New York

The New Yorkers Advancing Suicide Safer Care (NYASSC) project will reduce suicide attempts and deaths by implementing Zero Suicide (ZS) in health systems across all five mental health service regions in New York. The project will also create a Suicide Safer Care Network in a high-risk county by linking emergency departments, inpatient psychiatric units, outpatient mental health and substance use disorder treatment settings, and primary care practices to create a local zero suicide safety net. The project anticipates assessing 281,596 individuals served by the project sites for suicide risk over five years, and projects that of those assessed, 197,116 will receive suicide-specific interventions. The Office of Mental Health will partner with the Center for Practice Innovations at Columbia University and the University of Rochester to advance implementation of Zero Suicide across the state. Providers will develop competency in the NYS Suicide Safer Care Model which includes screening and assessing for suicide risk, developing a prevention-oriented risk formulation, suicide care management plan, providing suicide specific evidence-based treatment and brief interventions, and protocols for transition of care and follow up when patients move to a different level of care.

The four goals of the project are to:
1) implement Zero Suicide in health systems in each of the five regions of NYS,
2) develop a Suicide Safer Care Network across all health systems in one high risk county,
3) disseminate statewide implementation of Zero Suicide based on lessons learned at project sites in the first 3 years of the grant, and
4) evaluate the project’s impact on clinical service delivery and utilization and on suicide attempts and deaths.

With input and guidance from individuals with lived experience and members of the NYS Suicide Prevention Council, project goals will be accomplished by accomplishing the following objectives: engaging health systems leadership, conducting learning collaboratives, training providers, developing and implementing site specific protocols, developing and conducting fidelity checks for clinical components, developing and disseminating materials and trainings, creating a robust suicide surveillance infrastructure, and by conducting an outcome evaluation to assess impact of the project on suicide attempts and deaths. In Year 4, the NYS Suicide Prevention Conference will be devoted to introducing health systems, county leadership, and providers across the state to Zero Suicide, to the NYS Suicide Safer Care Model, and to lessons learned from a county’s development of a Suicide Safer Care Network of Health Systems to create a local zero suicide safety net.