Testing out PDSA - Roughage

With too much time on my hands, I'm taking free online courses on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement website, currently on quality improvement. The IHI chose the PDSA cycle as its weapon of choice, and in the spirit of self education, I'm creating a self-improvement project using the PDSA method. Follow me as I stumble through the path towards more roughage!

PDSA1

The three fundamental questions of the model for improvement:

1. Aim (How much? and By when?): I will consume at least 1 serving of fruits/vegetables with every meal eaten by the next month

2. Measures (How will we know a change is an improvement?):

- Outcome measures (How is the system performing?): Percentage = number of times successfully consuming AT LEAST 1 serving of fruits OR vegetables per meal eaten/total meals eaten. Data will be collected manually when eating real food only (not counting desserts/snacks). Baseline measurements will be excluded for convenience.

- Process measures (Are parts in the system performing reliably as planned?): The number of days with at least 2 servings of fruits/vegetables in house, the percentage of successfully getting a salad when eating food without roughage.

- Balancing measures (Did the changes we made to improve one part of the system mess up other parts?): One month after successfully eating at least 1 serving of fruits/vegetables per meal, I should not gain more than 10% of my baseline weight as a result of trying to eat more roughage. This data will be collected before and after 30 consecutive days of achieving the outcome measure. I don't have a scale so we'll have to skip this one.

3. Changes (What changes can we make that will result in improvement?):

- Keep at least 2 servings of fruits/vegetables in house at all times

- If there is no roughage accompanying the food I order when eating out, I must get a serving of salad with my food.

Plan:

- Objective: increase roughage consumption

- Question/prediction: Will keeping roughage in house and ordering salads when eating out increase roughage consumption?

- Plan: For the next week I will keep at least 2 servings of fruits/vegetables in house at all times, and if there is no roughage accompanying the food I order when eating out, I must get a serving of salad with my food.

Do:

- Problems: Cherry tomatoes go bad quickly and I can't shop that often, must find longer-lasting roughage!

- Unexpected observation:

Study:

- Results:

Act:

- Plan for next cycle: keep a bag of salad vegetables and Japanese salad dressing in house at all times? (yum!)

Track my progress here!