PDSA* Cycles: Testing Processes to Assess and Address the Social Health and Well-being of Children and Families in Your Practice
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Consider the practice-wide changes recommended to prepare the practice for implementation presented in the Practice Survey.
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PDSA Cycle: Start with a single process and rapidly test a change – by planning it, trying it, observing the results, and acting on what is learned.
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Plan
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Plan the small test of change:
- Describe the test.
- List the tasks necessary to complete the test.
- Consider: What is the workflow? Who is involved? What materials (eg, screening tools, brochures) are needed and how will they be accessed?
- What do you predict will happen?
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Do
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Pilot the test of change you have laid out. Collect data. Describe observations.
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Study
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What did you learn? Analyze data and observational feedback from from staff. How do your results compare with your prediction? What worked? What did not work? Use the information gathered to help refine and improve your process.
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Determine how to proceed with this test of change.
Adapt – Improve the change and continue testing.
Adopt – Select changes to implement on a larger scale.
Abandon – Discard this change and try a different change. |
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Use successive PDSA cycles to refine and improve your process. The value of the PDSA cycle is the continuous search for improvement.
Once a process is working well, standardize improvements and begin to use them regularly.
Consider formalizing the process as an office policy/procedure document.
Choose a different process or procedure and use PDSA cycles to test and refine as above.
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*PDSA Cycle is part of the Model of Improvement developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Cambridge, Massachusetts, US.