Sponsors (8)
The bill funds a multi-site Zero Suicide pilot to improve veteran suicide care, provider training, and data-driven improvements, but does so at taxpayer expense and with short-term staffing, privacy, and generalizability risks that require careful management before scaling.
Veterans will receive improved suicide-prevention care through a standardized Zero Suicide pilot at five VA sites, potentially reducing suicide attempts and deaths.
VA clinical staff and providers will receive intensive, structured training (including multi-week academy attendance), raising provider competence and confidence in managing suicide risk.
Veterans and the VA system will benefit from standardized collection and reporting of screening, counseling, referrals, and outcomes, enabling evaluation and quality improvement across sites.
Taxpayers and the VA budget will face additional costs to run the five-site pilot and training programs over up to seven years.
Veterans' short-term access to clinical care could be reduced because VA staff time will be diverted to program development and training during the initial and training periods.
A five-site pilot may not generalize to the full VA system, risking premature or inappropriate scaling if results are assumed to apply systemwide.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced December 4, 2025 by Susie Lee · Last progress December 4, 2025
Creates a VA pilot called the Zero Suicide Initiative that must be set up within 180 days of enactment to implement the Zero Suicide Institute curriculum at five VA medical centers. The pilot focuses on staff training, site-level changes to suicide care (screening, risk assessment, lethal means counseling, treatment and transitions), regular data collection, and annual and final reports on outcomes; it runs for five years with a possible two-year extension.