Rapid Cycle Improvements with Plan, Do, Study, Act

Plan, Do, Study, Act process is a quality improvement tool to enhance processes and ensuring high standards of care. Utilize this PDSA worksheet to systematically improve clinic processes and patient care outcomes.

Tips:

• Organize your change ideas into groups; some may be related to reminders systems, others related to patient engagement, etc.
• Decide which ideas are most likely to have the most impact with the least effort ... start with these ideas first.
• To overcome our tendency to start implementing changes before they have been tested, a common way to approach PDSA cycles is to start by considering ‘what could we test next Tuesday with a PDSA?’
• Because PDSAs start very small, they don’t require unanimous agreement. They are designed for learning, and so if some team members predict that the test won’t be effective, that is documented and reviewed along with any predictions of success.
• Teams may choose to test a change that they think will not be effective if that change requires the least effort ... it guides us to only invest as much energy into the change as we need to and not more. Remember, after every cycle you can decide to adopt the change, adapt the change, or abandon the change!

PDSA Common Errors:

• Making the test of change too large too quickly
• Not reviewing the PDSA with the team
• Not making a prediction ... we learn more by being surprised!

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