Clinical Updates Colloquium

An understanding of appropriate, evidence-based approaches when working with suicidal individuals is critical in providing effective and safe care. This presentation will briefly highlight a suicide risk assessment approach and then transition to two strategies with ample evidence associated with reducing risk. First, attendees will be introduced to the Safety Planning Intervention, an intentional approach to supporting patients generate tools to promote healthy and live-saving decisions when faced with a suicidal crisis. Second, attendees will learn tips on how to effectively discuss lethal means reduction with patients and families.

Matthew B. Wintersteen, Ph.D., is Director of the David Farber Center for the Advancement of Suicide Prevention Intervention, Research, and Education (ASPIRE) and Associate Professor and Director of Research in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Since 2019, Dr. Wintersteen has been awarded federal and state research funding amassing over $28 million to suicide prevention efforts in Pennsylvania, with over $6.5 million being directed to Jefferson. Over his career, he has received grant support from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. Dr. Wintersteen has served on national and international task forces convened by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, the American Association of Suicidology, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Suicide Awareness and Voices of Education, and the National Institute of Mental Health. He was a consultant to the National Center for the Prevention of Youth Suicide (NCPYS) and served on Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s Suicide Prevention Task Force. Dr. Wintersteen organized, participated, and moderated a panel of national and international experts on youth suicide tasked with developing an empirically-informed list of warning signs for youth suicide. His Board appointments include Chair of Prevent Suicide PA and President of the Delaware Valley Medical Student Wellness Collaborative (DVMSWC) – a group comprised of the Deans and counseling center directors of the seven Philadelphia-area medical schools to discuss and implement strategies across campuses to improve medical student wellness and reduce suicide deaths.

This session explores the roles of digital health and artificial intelligence in healthcare and social work. Through practical example and a guided discussion, participants will examine digital health and AI applications like predictive analytics for risk assessment, automated screening tools, and digital interventions. The session covers fundamental AI concepts, current implementations in social work settings, and critical ethical considerations including bias, privacy, and human-AI collaboration. Participants will evaluate real-world scenarios to develop frameworks for responsible AI adoption in their practice.

Dr. Carl J. Sheperis, Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies at Kutztown University, is a recognized expert in the application of artificial intelligence to the health professions. He has delivered keynote addresses on this topic throughout the world and serves on the AI working group for the Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). Dr. Sheperis has published articles on AI and is currently writing a textbook on the topic for Cognella.

Advances in artificial intelligence bode well for tremendous improvement in the efficiency and quality of health care. However, the use of artificial intelligence in health care also presents a number of ethical challenges, including the possibility of worsening inequity in the distribution of health care, the misuse of private data and confidentiality, a reduction in patient-provider interactions, and dehumanization in care. This session will provide an overview of the ethical challenges in the use of artificial intelligence in health care.

John Lizza (A.B., M.A., Ph.D., Columbia University) is a Professor of Philosophy at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. His main philosophical interests are in bioethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind, particularly issues concerning persons and personal identity. His research has focused on the role that the concepts of humanity and personhood play in the analysis and evaluation of issues in bioethics, such as the moral status of the human embryo and the definition of death. He is the author of Persons, Humanity, and the Definition of Death (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) and the editor of Potentiality: Metaphysical and Bioethical Dimensions (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014) and Defining the Beginning and End of Life: Readings on Personal Identity and Bioethics (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). He was Chair of the Committee for Philosophy and Medicine of the American Philosophical Association from 2007-2010 and an Adjunct Associate of the Hastings Center from 1993-2008.