Incorporating suicide screening and assement tools into EHR systems could make suicide screening a standard practice in the U.S., Pew Research reported March 29.
EHR systems, which already are being used to proactively screen for various health-related conditions, can embed suicide prevention and screening tools to help ensure patients, who are at risk of suicide, are identified and assessed.
Dallas-based Parkland Hospital has already begun the process.
In 2015, the hospital implemented a universal systemwide suicide screnning program into its EHR system, which helped screen more than 4 million patients.
The program successfully identified patients who screened postivie for risk of suicide. Of those who screen positive, 2.3 percent would have gone unrecognized without the EHR intervention, according to the report.
Making screening a routine part of healthcare can improve suicide prevention efforts nationwide, if screening and assessment tools were incoporated and accessible through EHR systems, according to the report.