Change ideas
What is it?
‘Change ideas’ refers to the ideas you have within a QI project that you are going to change to make an improvement. It is an idea for how you will make an improvement. It is a specific idea rather than a broad concept e.g. If trying to improve sleep, a change idea would be “charge phone in kitchen overnight” as opposed to a broad concept like “reduce technology use at night”
Why use it?
Without testing changes, improvements cannot be made to a system
How to use it?
There are many ways to come up with tests of change. Some include:
Get ‘system experts’, like patients and staff, involved in thinking up change ideas. People who use the system often are most likely the people with ideas for how to improve it. You can use dot voting to help prioritise new ideas.
Creating change ideas together (i.e. including your whole team) can make it easier to get people to try new processes and change ideas.Look over your planning tools (e.g. fishbone diagram, process map) to see if there any areas where you can test a change.
Use change concepts to come up with ideas.
Look outwards. Other teams, health boards or organisations may have already looked at your problem and have some good ideas for tests of change. Remember to adjust these to meet your needs. Some good places to start looking can include
Tests of change are linked intrinsically to many other QI tools and stages.
Driver diagrams: link tests of change to broader ideas and concepts.
PDSA cycles: a format used to evaluate a whether a change is an improvement.
Pareto charts: can be used to focus where your tests of change should begin.
Dot voting: can be used to prioritise the order that you test change ideas.
Prioritisation matrix: can be used to prioritise the order that you change test ideas.
More information
IHI - click for further explanation of change ideas
NHS Improvement - click for more information about creating change ideas.
Network for Improvement and Innovation - click for more details about change ideas.