What are the four steps of the PDSA cycle used in quality improvement?

• A. Plan, Do, Check, Act
• B. Plan, Do, Analyze, Act
• C. Plan, Study, Do, Act
• D. Plan, Do, Study, Act

Answer: (D)

Quality improvement relies on a small, repeatable loop that lets teams test changes and learn from the results. The sequence is Plan, Do, Study, Act. In Plan, you set the aim, choose the change to test, and decide how you’ll measure success. In Do, you implement the change on a limited scale as designed. In Study, you analyze the data, compare outcomes to your predictions, and assess what happened and why. In Act, you decide what comes next: adopt the change broadly, modify and re-test it, or abandon it if it didn’t work. This cycle is iterative, so after Act you start another cycle to drive further improvement. The other variations swap terms like Check or Analyze or put Study before Do, which breaks the intended learning flow of testing and then learning from the test results.