Quality Improvement: Conducting a Test of Change

After analyzing your process of care and designing improvements to test, it is important to carefully prepare for and conduct a test of change. We describe how to pull together all the necessary materials, gain leadership support, recruit a troubleshooter, communicate with the team, and identify test pitfalls. We explore how misunderstandings, technical challenges, inconsistency, and resistance may undermine a test of change. Most QI projects run though a cycle or two of testing until success occurs or enough data is accumulated to pick an improvement direction.

You will learn:

• Identify the steps required to conduct a test of change
• Describe common test of change pitfalls and remedies
• Describe how to recognize and rescue a failing test of change

Author(s): John D. Voss, MD

Estimated time to complete: 20 minutes

Credit hours: .5

Method and Medium: Learners participate in the interactive learning modules by correctly answering multiple choice questions dispersed throughout. Learners will be prompted to try again if a question is answered incorrectly.