HAP Achievement Awards: St. Luke’s University Health Network

July 24, 2026

HAP's annual Achievement Awards honor hospitals and health systems for their innovation, creativity, and commitment to patient care. The Achievement Awards showcase and share member hospitals’ and health systems’ successful programs and best practices.

St. Luke’s University Health Network received the Optimal Operations Award for standardizing suicide risk screening and observation protocols to improve patient safety and reduce 1:1 observation costs.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The challenge:  Suicide risk screening and observation practices varied across emergency departments and inpatient units, creating documentation gaps, regulatory concerns, and overuse of continual one-to-one observation.
• Addressing the Issue:  Baseline review found that many patients placed on suicide-related continual observation did not meet high-risk criteria, demonstrating the need for clearer screening, better documentation, and more consistent intervention decisions.
• Taking Action:  The network standardized suicide risk screening and observation practices, trained staff, updated care workflows, expanded monitoring options, and used routine audits to track progress.
• Results:  Patient monitoring better matched each person’s level of risk, continual one-to-one observation decreased by 44%, and the network avoided nearly $3 million in costs without an increase in self-harm events or suicide attempts.
• Advancing Care:  The initiative offers a model other health systems can adapt to strengthen suicide prevention, providing “a practical and transferable roadmap for health systems seeking to strengthen suicide prevention efforts, improve regulatory readiness, and optimize resource use without compromising patient safety.”

Congratulations to St. Luke’s University Health Network for its outstanding efforts to improve operations and care. Learn more about the project online.

Questions about the HAP Achievement Awards may be directed to HAP Member Services at (717) 561-5359.