The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI; see www. ihi.org) has had a profound impact on change and quality improvement in healthcare. Among IHI’s many innovations is rapid-cycle testing, an approach to trying out an idea on a small scale before it is widely implemented. During the testing, the idea is modified if needed and then tried again; the cycle continues until the ideal result is achieved. In the end, the idea is made permanent and applied on a large scale. A key component of rapid-cycle testing is the collection of small sets of data that can be quickly analyzed. These data samples must be carefully picked to ensure that they are representative of the larger data set. 

Questions 

1. How can rapid-cycle testing improve or harm a leader’s ability to make a change? 

2. Name other improvement strategies used in the healthcare field today.