Self-Harm Prevention Project: Presenting at the APNA Annual Conference
Self-Harm Prevention Project: Innovative and Evidence-Based Solutions to Promote a Safe Environment of Care on Inpatient Psychiatry was one of the posters presented last year at the APNA Annual Conference.
The poster featured solutions found by an interdisciplinary team at Stanford Health Care as it created a mental health environment of care checklist intending to achieve compliance with The Joint Commission 2019 standards for suicide and self-harm. The team also had the goal of promoting a safe environment of care for inpatient psychiatry patients.
Lisa Ledonne, MSN, RN, CPN and co-author Leonard Rivers, FMP were highly motivated to share this poster presentation at the APNA Annual Conference.
“Our hope is to inspire dialogue, knowledge sharing, and collaboration among psychiatric nursing professionals,” Ledonne says. “[This can help] collectively address the complex issue of self-harm and work towards achieving a safe and therapeutic inpatient psychiatric patient care environment.”
Ledonne, director of clinical operations – psychiatry at Stanford Health Care in Stanford, California, answered a few questions about the poster and presenting:
What tools did the team find most useful in evaluating the environment and identifying solutions?
The specific tools that the team found most useful for evaluating the environment and identifying solutions were the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Mental Health Environment of Care Checklist (MHEOCC) and the Behavioral Health Design Guide (formerly the Design Guide for the Built Environment of Behavioral Health Facilities).
Members often ask questions on APNA Member Bridge regarding promoting safe inpatient unit environments. What is one lesson learned from this project would you highlight for them?
The one lesson that our multidisciplinary team learned during this project was to employ and maintain interdisciplinary engagement, all-inclusive approaches, and hazard identification. These are all pivotal in achieving the goal: to create a safe inpatient psychiatric care environment.
Anything else you would like to share?
The Joint Commission specified that unlocked inpatient psychiatry units that care for voluntary patients do not need to be ligature-resistant. Psychiatric specific guiding principles provide direction for the establishment of recovery-oriented inpatient psychiatry patient care units which ultimately ensure a safe and therapeutic environment of care.
Published January 2024
>>> You, too, can share your evidence-based presentation – as a pre-conference session, a concurrent session, a mini concurrent session, or a poster presentation – at the APNA 38th Annual Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, on October 9-12. But you have to answer the Call for Abstracts! Open now, psychiatric-mental health RNs and APRNs in administration, education, practice, and research can send their science-based insights, projects, and scholarship for consideration for presentation.
>>> Click here to apply by February 2 to be part of the committee that reviews the abstracts.
About APNA: The American Psychiatric Nurses Association is a national professional membership organization committed to the practice of psychiatric-mental health nursing and wellness promotion, prevention of mental health problems, and the care and treatment of persons with psychiatric disorders. APNA’s membership is inclusive of all psychiatric-mental health registered nurses including associate degree, baccalaureate, advanced practice (comprised of clinical nurse specialists and psychiatric nurse practitioners), and nurse scientists and academicians (PhD). APNA serves as a resource for psychiatric-mental health nurses to engage in networking, education, and the dissemination of evidence. The American Psychiatric Nurses Association is accredited as a provider of continuing nursing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
