IPD: Legal, Safety & Compliance

Risk Assessments & Critical Patients

Risk Assessments (ipd/pages/risk_assessment.php) documents structured risk screening for inpatients — including the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS) for suicide risk, and additional scales for elopement and violence risk. Requires ipd_progress_notes.

C-SSRS domains captured

  • Ideation: passive, active, with intent, with a plan.
  • Behaviour: preparatory acts, actual attempt, interrupted attempt, aborted attempt, self-injurious behaviour without suicidal intent.

Each domain is scored, contributing to a total risk score.

Step-by-step

  1. Go to Risk Assessments for the admission.
  2. Complete the C-SSRS (and elopement/violence scales as applicable), checking the relevant boxes for ideation and behaviour domains.
  3. Save — the total score and level are recorded and feed into downstream tools like the 1:1 Observation Scheduler's staffing suggestions and the practice-wide AI Insights dashboard.
  4. Re-assess at clinically appropriate intervals, especially after any change in status.

Common issues & fixes

requires ipd_progress_notes.
refresh the Observation Scheduler; it pulls the latest saved assessment.
the C-SSRS structure is fixed for consistency and legal defensibility; add clinical nuance in free-text notes/progress notes alongside it rather than in the structured fields.

Was this article helpful?

Thanks for the feedback!
ESC
navigate open esc close