Science of Improvement: How to Improve

​The Model for Improvement,* developed by Associates in Process Improvement, is a simple yet powerful tool for accelerating improvement. The model is not meant to replace change models that organizations may already be using, but rather to accelerate improvement. This model has been used very successfully by hundreds of health care organizations in many countries to improve many different health care processes and outcomes.

The model has two parts:

  • Three fundamental questions, which can be addressed in any order.
  • The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle** to test changes in real work settings. The PDSA cycle guides the test of a change to determine if the change is an improvement.


Forming the Team
Including the right people on a process improvement team is critical to a successful improvement effort. Teams vary in size and composition. Each organization builds teams to suit its own needs.

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Setting Aims
The aim should be time-specific and measurable; it should also define the specific population of patients or other system that will be affected.

Establishing Measures
Teams use quantitative measures to determine if a specific change actually leads to an improvement.

Ideas for change may come from those who work in the system or from the experience of others who have successfully improved.
 


Testing Changes
The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle is shorthand for testing a change in the real work setting — by planning it, trying it, observing the results, and acting on what is learned. This is the scientific method adapted for action-oriented learning.

 

Implementing Changes
After testing a change on a small scale, learning from each test, and refining the change through several PDSA cycles, the team may implement the change on a broader scale — for example, for an entire pilot population or on an entire unit.
 
Spreading Changes
After successful implementation of a change or package of changes for a pilot population or an entire unit, the team can spread the changes to other parts of the organization or in other organizations.
 
 
Sources:
*Langley GL, Nolan KM, Nolan TW, Norman CL, Provost LP. The Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Enhancing Organizational Performance (2nd edition). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers; 2009.
 
**The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle was published by W. Edwards Deming in The New Economics for Industry, Government, and Education [Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press; 2000]. For more on the development of the PDSA cycle and how it differs from PDCA, see: Moen RD, Norman CL. Circling back: Clearing up myths about the Deming cycle and seeing how it keeps evolving. Quality Progress. November 2010.
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