Plan, do, study, act cycles, or PDSA cycles, are the basis of many quality improvement projects, they're a model to trial changes and feed the lessons from each test into the next.

Why are they a popular method, and how do you get the best out of them? And what on earth happens when they explode?

Harriet Vickers asks Julie Reed, National Institute for Healthcare Research CLAHRC (Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care) for north west London.

Read all of Julie's paper (for free): http://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/25/3/147

<p>Check out BMJ Quality: http://quality.bmj.com</p>

Bad with names

Effective, efficient, patient-centred and safe healthcare is what we all want to see, and what the field of quality improvement is all about.

In these podcasts, Harriet Vickers talks to doctors and other healthcare professionals about how they’ve gone about improving care for their patients, and explores the ideas and techniques behind making change happen.

http://quality.bmj.com