The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced the winners of the Mission Daybreak Grand Challenge, part of a 10-year strategy to end veteran suicide through a holistic public health approach.
WHY IT IMPORTANT
According to an announcement of the Mission Daybreak winners, preventing veteran suicide is a top clinical priority for the VA.
The challenge was launched last year and out of more than 1,300 ideas submitted, 30 were selected to compete with a $20 million grant to develop their innovations.
According to the VA, veterans, veterans service organizations, community-based organizations, health technology companies, startups, and universities have submitted ideas ranging from programs Virtual care targets other promising suicide prevention technologies that help connect veterans with healing and recovery.
The agency awarded first place winners Stop Soldier Suicide and Televeda $3 million each.
The winners in second place – ReflexAI, Sentinel and Battle Buddy – will receive $1 million each.
Five third place winners – Even Health, NeuroFlow, Overwatch Project, OxfordVR and Team Guidehouse – each won $500,000.
Learn more about their award-winning suicide prevention technologies:
Stop the Suicide Soldier’s Black Box Project seeks to accelerate precision methods of suicide prevention by identifying and analyzing data from the digital devices of veterans who have died by suicide to develop machine learning models that can can identify previously unknown risk patterns and pair them with evidence-based suicide-specific interventions.
Televeda .’s Hozhó Project is the first mental health app for Native Americans and Alaska Natives. The app and comprehensive action plan was designed in partnership with the veteran communities for Navajo Veterans. Project Hózhó combines traditional healing approaches – like storytelling and conversational interventions – while improving access to VA resources to reduce AIAN veteran suicide rates.
reflexAI is an artificial intelligence-powered tool based on a three-pronged approach of simulation, feedback, and quality assurance that can help the Veterans Crisis Line train and maintain a team of responders.
sentinel is a secure storage of gun mobile apps, integrating smart gun and drug locking devices with a community and learning support network.
Comrades, a partnership between the USC Institute of Innovative Technology and the SoldierStrong Foundation, is a virtual human-led mental health and wellness app that promotes the resilience of veterans at risk of suicide. death. It uses interactive AI, conversation, and content from the VA Suicide Safety Planning program for a brief daily check-in. The app will also connect to wearable sensors to promote sleep, exercise, and other health cues.
Even Health’s Cabana is a virtual reality-based group support platform for veterans who have survived suicide attempts. It adapts an established support group pattern to reduce suicide rates and increase resilience and a sense of belonging.
Nerve is a two-sided technology platform that provides virtual and face-to-face support to veterans with tailored resources and 24/7 digital care. It will measure their evolving behavioral health needs to inform care teams of potential crises before they occur.
watch project is a peer-based intervention program that includes training, community engagement, and communication initiatives created with the veteran’s authentic voice and tone. The goal is to empower veterans to intervene with friends at risk, offer to temporarily keep their guns, or implement protective storage measures. This is an initiative modeled on the FORGE nonprofit’s “Friends don’t let your friends drive while drunk” campaign.
Oxford VR Game Change, a digital therapy using virtual reality that has been designated as a Breakthrough Device by the Food and Drug Administration, treats the severe social isolation common to PTSD, the disorder mental illness and major depression. It’s a compelling and scalable opportunity to treat veterans where they were before the time of crisis.
Team Instructor has a data platform that integrates both social determinants of health and social media data into health records. It uses an external dashboard to identify veterans at risk, in real time, and provides actionable insights for suicide prevention. Team Guidehouse is a collaboration between Red Hat and Philip Held of Rush University Medical Center.
TREND TO BIGGER
US veterans have had a suicide rate twice the rate of non-veterans over the years. People in rural areas are more likely to commit suicide than people in urban areas.
But studies show that technologies like telemedicine can treat suicidal ideation anywhere there are veterans.
During a pandemic that has isolated and restricted access for healthcare providers, the VA has ramped up efforts to distribute video-enabled tablets.
A study published in the journal Journal of the American Medical Association Open Online found that the pills led to increased psychotherapy visits and fewer veterans’ emergency department visits and decreased suicidal behavior.
These results reinforce an earlier finding that tablets improved continuity of mental health care and expand on previous work by showing a reduction in mental health, the researchers said. emergency visits and tablet-related suicide.”
ON PROFILE
“Our veterans need and deserve suicide prevention solutions that work for them anywhere, instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach, and that’s exactly what That’s what Mission Daybreak has to offer,” said Dr. Shereef Elnahal, VA Deputy Minister of Health. in the notice.
“By drawing on multiple focus areas and life experiences, Mission Daybreak winners have developed innovations that will save veterans’ lives – and nothing matters more than that.”
Andrea Fox is the senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.
