1 The W. Edwards Deming Institute. (n.d.). The PDSA cycle. Retrieved from https://www.deming.org/theman/theories/pdsacycle 2 FRIENDS National Resource Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention. (n.d.). Continuous quality improvement. Retrieved from http://friendsnrc.org/continuous-quality-improvement

Coordinating Developmental Screenings in Early Childhood Systems and Medical Homes: A Toolkit for Communities © University of Kansas Center for Public Partnerships and Research 2014

 

PLAN DO STUDY ACT (PDSA) CYCLE OVERVIEW

Once your Community Implementation Team has developed objectives and an action plan, established shared measures, and implemented the action plan in your community, the next steps are to monitor outcomes and adjust your approach if necessary. 1 The Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) cycle can help you do this. Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) is a process to ensure programs are systematically and intentionally improving processes and increasing positive outcomes.2 In a CQI environment, data is collected and used to make improvements.2 The PDSA cycle helps move theories and ideas into changes that result in positive changes. The four steps in a PDSA cycle can be repeated over and over, making it one tool in a CQI process.

Plan: Plan a change. What exactly are we going

to do?

Do: Try it. When and how did we do it?

Study: Observe. What were the results?

Act: Refine the change as necessary. What

changes are we going to make based on the

findings?

Plan  

Do  Study  

Act    

Coordinating Developmental Screenings in Early Childhood Systems and Medical Homes: A Toolkit for Communities © University of Kansas Center for Public Partnerships and Research 2014

Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) Cycle Worksheet Use the worksheet to study only one “change” or intervention at a time. You may need to complete the PDSA cycle worksheet multiple times in order to assess all of the changes included in your community’s plan. Plan Define the change to be tested through the PDSA cycle.

Do Implement the change. Collect data.

Study Analyze the data and study the results.

Act Refine the change based on what was learned.

What change will you make? Who will be involved? How long will the change take to implement? What resources are needed? What data need to be collected?

Observations: Problems:

Did the change result in the expected outcome? Summarize what was learned. (Look for unintended consequences, surprises, successes, and challenges.)

• Adapt – modify the changes and repeat PDSA cycle • Adopt – consider expanding the changes • Abandon – change your approach and repeat PDSA cycle

List your action steps along with the person(s) responsible and time line.

Describe what actually happened when you implemented the changes.

Describe the measured results and how they compared to the predictions.

Describe what modifications to the plan will be made based on what you learned.

Adapted from Get with the guidelines PDSA worksheet, by the American Stroke Association/American Heart Association, n.d., www.heart.org/HEARTORG/. Copyright 2014 by American Heart Association, Inc. PDSA worksheet for testing changes originally developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the adapted worksheet is accessible at http://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@private/@hcm/@gwtg/documents/downloadable/ucm_311111.pdf