White House Hosts Suicide Prevention Panel

[Boats]

VFW Report 9-30-16
RE: VFW Action Corps

Topic: White House Hosts Suicide Prevention Panel:

On Thursday, the White House hosted its fourth panel in the “Making Health Care Better” series which included leaders in suicide prevention research, and prevention and intervention from both the government sector as well as the private and non-profit sectors. In attendance was VA Undersecretary for Health, Dr. David Shulkin, who discussed how VA has been working to partner with more outside sources such as the National Institute of Mental Health to address veteran suicide. VA makes roughly 1.8 million mental health care appointments a year and Dr. Shulkin assured they are doing their best to reduce 20 veteran suicides a day to zero. Some new ways VA has been working on innovations to address veteran suicide has been through implementing suicide specialists within every VA Medical Center by the end of 2016, focusing on meta data for veterans who may be overlooked for high risk of suicide, and adding the option to press the number seven on the Veterans Crisis Line to immediately speak to somebody. To watch the panel discussion, click here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-an...ide-prevention.