Quality Improvement Zone

What is a change idea?

   You will need to identify change ideas that the team believe will have an impact on your secondary drivers and therefore on your aim.
   Click here to see the Develop Aim and Change Theory QI Zone page.

Change ideas are the things you can specifically test to see if they make a difference.

A change idea is not just a general concept.  For example, improve communication in the team is a concept whereas the introduction of a weekly huddle is a change idea.

When we identify and develop changes for improvement we need to think about these from the perspective of the people the system is there to help. If we want a system to provide better outcomes or experience than before, it needs to be altered or redesigned in some way.  A new system may even need to be designed. This is called fundamental change.

Reactive change is used to maintain current performance. This is often used to solve problems or react to something exceptional that has happened. This ability is important but does not move service standards or outcomes beyond historical levels.

When aiming for improvement we need to look for fundamental change ideas. They will alter how the system works and what people do. The effect will then be felt by people experiencing the service into the future.

Sometimes people mix up change ideas with tasks to be done within the project. For example, collecting data is not a change in itself that will impact on your aim but an important task within the project.