National Patient Safety Goals

In our nation lives are lost every day unnecessarily to suicide. The Joint Commission addressed this health care concern with its 2013 National Patient Safety Goal number fifteen “The hospital identifies safety risks inherent in its patient population, identify patients at risk for suicide.” (TJC, 2013) The Joint Commission is a not-for-profit organization working to improve health care so the public can “experience the safest, highest quality, best-value health care across all setting.” (TJC, 2013) Each year the Joint Commission establishes National Patient Safety Goals to improve patient safety. The goals focus on problems in healthcare safety and how to solve them. Keeping people safe is an important part of a health care provider’s job, …show more content…
687) Most people who attempt and commit suicide don’t do it because they want to die; they just want the pain to stop. Much of the time people who take their own life have underlying mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, or psychotic disorders that are untreated and/or suffer from chronic pain. This is important for nurses to understand because usually they are the first line of defense to detect and assess for symptoms exhibited by clients. Fostering a therapeutic relationship with a client helps a nurse to see warning signs and observe changes in client’s behavior or disposition. Integrating suicidal risk assessment into regular assessment data gathering would be a good strategy to get in the habit of asking the right questions which will help create a normal response baseline for the patient and make it a regular topic for discussion helping to foster an environment where the patient will feel comfortable discussing his/her real feelings. This will allow the nurse to be aware if mood changes …show more content…
Of the population who committed suicide almost half (forty-five percent) had contact with their primary care health care provider in the month leading up to their suicide (Halter, 2014, P. 481). Using a quick scale assessment tool for risk factors for suicide can help identify clients in the hospital and in the clinical setting. Use of the SADPERSONS scale addresses ten major factors that might tell if some-one is at risk for suicide and is in need of a more in-depth evaluation. SADPERSON is an easy to remember acronym that tells the health care professional what to screen and points are assigned if risk factors are present. The scale is as follows “S- sex one point if male, A-age one point if twenty-five to forty-four years or over sixty-five years old, D-depression one if present, P-previous attempt one if present, E-ethanol use one if present, R-rational thinking loss one if psychotic for any reason, S-social supports lacking one if lacking, especially if there has been a recent loss, O-organized plan one if plan with lethal method, N-no spouse one if divorced, widowed, separated, or single male, S-sickness one if severe or chronic, the guidelines for action include 0-2 send home with follow-up, 3-4 closely follow up; consider hospitalization, 5-6 strongly consider

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