HarrisLogic Partners with Zero Suicide Institute to Create Comprehensive Technology for Suicide Prevention

ST. LOUIS, June 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- HarrisLogic, a technology and clinical services company that develops solutions to improve patient care in behavioral health, is partnering with the Zero Suicide Institute (ZSI) to create a new, digital platform to provide comprehensive suicide prevention services. This specialty behavioral health services platform is the first of its kind, and is designed to support and enhance the Zero Suicide approach for safer suicide care.

HarrisLogic's technology will support the development of a Zero Suicide clinical workflow that a health care system might use to trace suicide care efforts. Known as the "Zero Suicide Platform," the digital solution will be implemented across hospital and healthcare systems, and offer features including best practice workflow, screening and assessment tools, risk and level of care calculators, intervention modules, and data analytics.

"Despite the tremendous scientific breakthroughs in suicide prevention over the past 20 years, training and adoption of best treatment practices has been stagnant, while suicide rates have climbed," said Hudson Harris, Chief Engagement Officer of HarrisLogic. "The goal of our solution is to accelerate adoption by health care systems and clinicians, and ultimately, save lives."

The Zero Suicide framework is defined by a system-wide, organizational commitment to providing effective suicide care in health and behavioral health care systems. It represents a culture shift away from fragmented suicide care toward a holistic and comprehensive commitment to patient safety—the most fundamental responsibility of health care. HarrisLogic will develop the technology to support the application of five key elements of the Zero Suicide framework, each of which represents a best practice in suicide care:

1. Train: Train a competent, confident, and caring workforce;
2. Identify: Identify patients with suicide risk via comprehensive screenings;
3. Engage: Engage all individuals at-risk of suicide using a suicide care management plan;
4. Treat: Treat suicidal thoughts and behaviors using evidence-based treatments;
5. Transition: Transition individuals through care with warm hand-offs and supportive contacts to provide a wide-ranging, digital solution for clinicians treating persons at risk for suicide and / or persons experiencing behavioral crisis.

"Zero Suicide is an aspirational goal to which health care systems should strive," said Julie Goldstein Grumet of Education Development Center, home of the Zero Suicide Institute.  "Individuals coming to a health care system or agency should expect that safe and effective suicide care will be provided allowing people and their loved ones to get well and flourish."

Built and modeled on decades of experience in clinical settings, HarrisLogic developed the Crisis Response platform back in 2006 to help guide mental health professionals in providing suicide prevention services. Through this partnership with ZSI, HarrisLogic will be able to implement best practice tools to further improve the quality and quantity of services provided.

"Not enough people at risk for suicide receive the evidence-based treatment they need," said Glen Surnamer, CEO of HarrisLogic. "We are honored to be working with ZSI, the leaders in suicide safer care practices for health care systems, and look forward to bringing our joint, digital solution to clinicians around the country, so we can help as many people as possible."  

Goldstein Grumet adds, "Over 400 health care systems have already adopted Zero Suicide and this partnership with HarrisLogic will help extend how we bring tools and resources to health care systems utilizing this framework."

The Zero Suicide Platform is currently in development and will be launched over the next 12 months. For more information, visit http://www.harrislogic.com/.

About HarrisLogic
HarrisLogic is a technology and clinical services company that develops solutions to help healthcare professionals make clinical decisions for mental health patients. Founded in 1998 on the belief that technology can improve mental healthcare, HarrisLogic develops transformative, data-driven solutions for social impact, specifically in the areas of suicide prevention, crisis response, and recidivism. We collaborate with clinical, operational and civil liberties experts to build products that save lives and optimize the use of critical resources. To date, HarrisLogic solutions have tracked more than 1,000,000 crisis encounters and supported nearly 100,000 face-to-case encounters. For more information, visit http://www.harrislogic.com/.

SOURCE HarrisLogic