What Is "High Risk" and What Are We Actually Supposed to Do About It?

Regulatory agencies are increasingly taking on the important issue of effective risk assessment, risk stratification, and treatment planning for youth with psychiatric illness.¹ The Joint Commission mandates a suicide assessment for patients "who exhibit suicidal behavior or who have screened positive for suicidal ideation" followed by risk stratification: after "this assessment, patients should be classified as high, medium or low risk of suicide."² We anticipate that just as screening for depression and suicidality was initially restricted to emergency departments and inpatient units before being rolled out across all care settings, so risk stratification requirements will roll out to these other settings as well.