PDSA Practice Improvement Plan CC5.c
The PDSA project will provide the student the experience to initiate and coordinate planned change in a health care organization. The purpose of this assignment is to engage the student in analysis of an evidence-based practice scenario within their clinical experiences. process. The assignment will be divided into four phases.
Part I: Plan
I plan to: Here you will write a concise statement of what you plan to do.
I hope this produces: Here you can put a measurement or an outcome that you hope to achieve.
Steps to execute: Here is where you will write the steps that you are going to take in this cycle. You will want to include the following:
Problem Identification: Identify a clinical problem that you observed in the clinical site. Digging up clinical problems can start with observations of clinical practice on your unit, asking staff about the problems they face when delivering care, looking through policies and procedures and guidelines of care to assess if there is a standard or policy to improve practice. Talking with patients about their perceptions of the care they are receiving and asking clinical questions that address the clinical implication of the observation. Is there a problem, a patient, or a population there is negatively affected by the present standard of practice? Once this P factor is determined without a present resolution, them a clinical question should be developed using the PICO process.
The population this could be a patient, a problem, a population, a unit, a division, or organization problem.
The time limit that you are going to do this project—remember, it does not have to be long, just long enough to get your results. You may set a time limit of 1 week but find out after 4 hours that it does not work. You can terminate the cycle at that point because you got your results.
Review of literature: What level of knowledge is out there to address the problem, are there any evidence-based guidelines already published. Most of the literature reviewed should utilize systematic reviews, meta-analysis, or clinical guidelines. Individual studies review expert opinion articles and clinical articles can be used as supportive literature for clinical issues with limited research.
Part II: Do
After you have your plan, you will execute it or set it in motion. During this implementation, you will be keen to watch what happens once you do this.
What did you observe? Here you will write down observations you have during your implementation. This may include how the patients react, how the nurses react, how it fit in with your organizational system. You will ask, “Did everything go as planned?” “Did I have to modify the plan?”
Part III: Study
After implementation you will study the results.
What did you learn? Did you meet your measurement goals? Here you would
Part IV: Act
What did you conclude from this cycle? Here you will write what you came away with for this implementation, whether it worked or not. And if it did not work, what you can do differently in your next cycle to address that. If it did work, are you ready to spread it across your entire practice?