The VA released its newest National Suicide Data Report on Monday [June 17 - ed.], which includes data from 2005 through 2015. Much in the report remained unchanged from two years ago, when the VA reported suicide statistics through 2014. Veteran suicide rates are still higher than the rest of the population, particularly among women.

In both reports, the VA said an average of 20 veterans succumbed to suicide every day. In its newest version, the VA was more specific.

The report shows the total is 20.6 suicides every day. Of those, 16.8 were veterans and 3.8 were active-duty servicemembers, guardsmen and reservists, the report states. That amounts to 6,132 veterans and 1,387 servicemembers who died by suicide in one year.

The VA's 2012 report stated 22 veterans succumbed to suicide every day -- a number that’s still often cited incorrectly. That number also included active-duty troops, Guard and Reserve, VA Press Secretary Curt Cashour said Wednesday.

VA officials determine the statistic by analyzing state death certificates and calculating the percentage of veterans out of all suicides. The death certificates include a field designating whether the deceased ever served in the U.S. military.

Information in the 2012 report wasn’t as complete as the newer ones. At the time, only 21 states shared information from their death certificates. California and Texas, which have large veteran populations, were two of the states that didn’t provide their data.

"Since that report was released, we have been closely collaborating with the [Department of Defense] to increase our level of accuracy in reporting," Cashour wrote in an email.

A pair of programs currently underway at a Veterans Affairs medical center in Cleveland aim to determine if a low-dose infusion of ketamine — the anesthetic that gained popularity for its street name ‘Special K’ in the 1960s and 70s — can help patients with treatment-resistant depression, and whether the drug can work as an emergency measure to help those at a high risk of suicide.

Spearheaded by Dr. Punit Vaidya, the ketamine project was one among dozens presented in late August during a Veterans Health Administration innovation event at the National Press Club in Washington. At the event, VHA employees gave ‘Shark Tank’-style presentations on projects at their clinics and fielded questions from a panel as they vied for funding to design, develop and scale their projects.

As a staff psychiatrist at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center in Ohio, Vaidya launched a program earlier this year to use ketamine infusion therapy as a way to expand treatment options for patients suffering from treatment-refractory depression — or in layman’s terms: severe cases of depression that don’t respond to antidepressants.

“Unfortunately about 30% of individuals with major depression don’t respond to medications,” Vaidya told T&P. “So people can become desperate for things that work, because they can have a huge impact on their quality of life, and their overall functioning.”

The ketamine infusion, administered intravenously over the course of six sessions in the span of three weeks is “off-label,” meaning it’s approved by the Food and Drug Administration as an anesthetic, but not specifically designed for use in cases of treatment-resistant depression. According to Vaidya, a “handful” of veteran patients with treatment-resistant depression have participated in the project.

The effects of the ketamine infusion can often be seen within a day, if not hours, Vaidya explained.