Army trying to "predict" suicides?

Excuse me but, what good would it do to "predict" which ones considering they pretty much failed at doing much about the ones who tried to commit suicide multiple times? This article points out that they have been "doing something" about all of this since 2004,,,,and yes, we noticed that means 10 years but I guess they forgot about all the other "efforts" they tried and failed with already.

Army developing method to predict suicide in soldiers
USA TODAY
Gregg Zoroya
November 12, 2014

Army suicides began rising in 2004, reaching record highs in 2012 and 2013 as the leading cause of death, surpassing war, heart disease, homicide, car accidents and other causes.

The Army is developing a way to predict which soldiers might be at higher risk of committing suicide by using a scientist-developed algorithm.

The six-year-long effort could help commanders and health care workers intervene before a suicide occurs, a problem that has plagued the Army since fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan began.

The findings — described in a paper released Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry — show soldiers with a psychiatric disorder have an unusually elevated risk of committing suicide in the year after being discharged from the hospital, a rate of nearly 264 suicides per 100,000 soldiers. The national suicide rate is about 12 per 100,000.

The Army, which received the findings last year, is developing a data system to generate predictive scores for at-risk soldiers, said Ronald Kessler, a researcher at Harvard Medical School and lead author of the paper.

Lt. Col. Ben Garrett, an Army spokesman, described the science as "an important step forward." He cautioned that much work remains before a program of identifying soldiers at risk of committing suicide can be put into action.

"The Army is working through complex privacy and ethical concerns regarding the use of these types of data, as well as updating the data from today's soldiers," Garrett said. "Use of the risk model will enhance the Army's ability to provide services to soldiers at elevated risk."
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