PCG and our partner LexisNexis recently received a promise award from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)-sponsored Mission Daybreak Challenge. The award is part of the VA’s challenge “[calling] on innovators to develop suicide prevention solutions that meet the diverse needs of Veterans.

According to the Mission Daybreak website, “[…] Mission Daybreak is fostering solutions across a broad spectrum of focus areas. A diversity of solutions will only be possible if a diversity of solvers—including Veterans, researchers, technologists, advocates, clinicians, health innovators, and service members— answer the call to collaborate and share their expertise.”

As longstanding solution partners, PCG and LexisNexis understood that creating suicide prevention solutions for Veterans is complex. Multiple underlying medical, psychosocial, and environmental factors need to be recognized and addressed. The PCG/LexisNexis team’s solution for the Mission Daybreak Challenge, ReachFurther, was built upon existing data available to the VA relative to the physical and mental health of veterans under their care and leverages social determinants of health (SDOH) data to enhance the VA’s assessment of suicide risk.

ReachFurther advances the REACH VET program by integrating social-risk insights into predictive modeling and prevention interventions. The solution will supplement the VA’s predictive analytics with alternative, real-world, and ever-evolving data sets that provide deep understanding about individual-level social risks—to perform effective intervention, especially for underserved individuals.

The VA awarded the PCG and LexisNexis team a promise award to show the value and potential of their combined solution. The award derived from the team’s challenge entry that was selected from over 1,300 abstract entries. It was also in the top five percent of all submissions. As recipients, PCG and LexisNexis proudly accepted the promise award of $100,000 to continue promotion of this invaluable suicide prevention solution for Veterans.

Emily Crawford, a team member from PCG, said, “What makes the PCG/LexisNexis approach to Mission Daybreak unique is that we aim to understand the individual at a holistic, comprehensive level. The significance of how impactful this SDOH data can be is extraordinary. Our solution can have a true, meaningful impact on veterans’ lives. That’s what is at the heart of our solution.”