5. Make changes and test
The team needs to kōrero and agree on changes they can make that will improve the issue they’ve identified, and then make these changes.
At this step, going back and looking at the problem and AIM statements is useful. What specific changes will help the team to achieve their goals?
Test the changes
After confirming the measures and making changes, the practice will be ready to test the changes. This is when the practice uses the quality improvement methodology, they decided on earlier in the module.
Continuous quality improvement is built on small incremental changes, using a systematic scientific approach to test their impact and feasibility.
Example of how to test changes based on the PDSA methodology
-
Plan
What is the objective of this test or change? What do you think will happen and why? How, when, where, and by whom will the change be tested? What data will you collect?
-
Do
What happened as you conducted the test? What did you observe? What problems or unexpected observations were encountered?
-
Study
What data did you collect? What does the data show? How does it compare to your predictions? Is the quality of the data adequate? What did you learn? You should include a graph or chart of your data.
-
Act
If the test didn’t show ideal improvement, what modifications should be made to your change? What would be the plan for the next test? If the test did show desired improvement, what are the next steps for implementing or spreading the change?
