Suicide rates in the United States have risen nearly 30 percent in the last two decades across all sexes, races, ages, and ethnic groups, according to a study recently released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But St. Louis, Missouri-based HarrisLogic hopes to slow that tide with its software designed to support the behavioral healthcare community.
Recently, HarrisLogic turned its attention to look at how technology could be used to help abate the suicide epidemic in North America. Hudson Harris is the chief engagement officer at HarrisLogic. He says, “We’ve partnered with The Zero Suicide Institute, a group that helps healthcare organizations care for individuals at-risk for suicide.”
Together the organizations will create a Zero Suicide Platform to support best practices in suicide care from training care providers to managing treatment plans.
Relying on SAP Predictive Analytics and in-memory technology from SAP HANA, the Zero Suicide Platform will use historical and current data to help clinicians formulate people’s risk and get them into treatment more quickly. Harris explains that the Zero Suicide platform has two parts: “There’s the front end for clinical work — that’s our crisis response platform used by doctors and clinicians. They are inputting evidence-based information.”
In addition, HarrisLogic’s “Population Health” engine integrates data and helps organizations streamline and improve healthcare. Harris explains, “We can take a wide array of data streams and match them to one person. That can include information on mental health issues, criminal data, housing information, or medical records — we can analyze that data together to get a full profile on one person.”
The combined solution from SAP and HarrisLogic is intended to help clinicians assess patients faster and more effectively. Harris says, “Accurate risk formulation is a complex process, but we can synthesize large amounts of data to provide clinical decision support and get people connected to the right treatment much more quickly.”
The Zero Suicide Platform is still under development, but Harris is already considering pairing it with artificial intelligence (AI) from its other platforms. “Our system documented more than 2 million crisis encounters and this volume of data makes it possible for us to use AI to help identify who is likely to follow a care plan or be readmitted.”
With SAP technology, HarrisLogic has given mental health professionals a digital system that supports fast, live, and accurate decision making. So far, the collaboration has helped HarrisLogic demonstrate the clinical and financial impact of its solutions across a complex, fragmented healthcare system. Specifically, HarrisLogic helped a major metropolitan area demonstrate a four-to-one return on investment for its treatment of prisoners with mental health issues, and led to an 80 percent crisis diversion rate.
Says Harris, “We care about protecting the lives of the people we serve and helping society. With SAP’s help, we can build predictive models that will offer people peace of mind and improve their quality of life.”
HarrisLogic is an SAP Innovation Award winner! Learn about other winners or submit your company for the 2019 awards here.
