1. Short title This Act may be cited as the VA Emergency Department Safety Planning Act . 2. Report on efforts by Department of Veterans Affairs to implement safety planning in emergency departments (a) Findings Congress makes the following findings: (1) The Department of Veterans Affairs must be more effective in its approach to reducing the burden of veteran suicide connected to mental health diagnoses, to include expansion of treatment delivered via telehealth methods and in rural areas. (2) An innovative project, known as Suicide Assessment and Follow-up Engagement: Veteran Emergency Treatment (in this subsection referred to as SAFE VET ), was designed to help suicidal veterans seen at emergency departments within the Veterans Health Administration and was successfully implemented in five intervention sites beginning in 2010. (3) A 2018 study found that safety planning intervention under SAFE VET was associated with 45 percent fewer suicidal behaviors in the six-month period following emergency department care and more than double the odds of a veteran engaging in outpatient behavioral health care. (4) SAFE VET is a promising alternative and acceptable delivery of care system that augments the treatment of suicidal veterans in emergency departments of the Veterans Health Administration and helps ensure that those veterans have appropriate follow-up care. (5) Beginning in September 2018, the Veterans Health Administration implemented a suicide prevention program based on the findings of SAFE VET, known as the SPED program, for veterans presenting to the emergency department who are assessed to be at risk for suicide and are safe to be discharged home. (6) The SPED program includes issuance and update of a safety plan and post-discharge follow-up outreach for veterans to facilitate engagement in outpatient mental health care. (b) Report (1) In general Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a