CMB4 - Improving Timely Referrals for Youth Suicide Prevention

Session Description: Suicide is a leading cause of death among youth. A significant concern is the timely referral for follow-up care post-discharge from emergency services, inpatient care, partial hospitalization, or intensive outpatient care. For this quality improvement work, we comprehensively charted the existing landscape of suicide prevention services in Illinois. The goal was to identify areas of vulnerability in the system for those transitioning from suicide-related care. Care fragmentation has been a major barrier in connecting youth post-discharge back to their primary care providers. To better identify potential opportunities to improve referrals and close the care coordination gap, we followed a population of individuals (≤ 24 years old) from the data available from Community Health Centers (CHCs) to their hospital-based care within a network of 6 large health systems in Chicago. The analysis of this data along with the convening of a Stakeholder Workgroup was leveraged to inform the subsequent development of a “Referral Improvement Plan,” with resulting solutions divided into short, mid-, and long-term. Some of these included the development of communications for providers on both the hospital and CHC level, social service resource development, and advocating for policy-level changes to improve statewide processes.