IHI Psychology of Change Framework to Advance and Sustain Improvement

This white paper is a guide for all leaders interested in understanding the underlying psychology of change and leveraging its power to impact quality improvement efforts: to achieve breakthrough
results, sustainably, at scale. Improvement science has given health care improvers a theoretical framework and the applied technical skills to understand variation, study systems, build learning,
and determine the best evidence-based interventions (“what”) and implementation strategies (“how”) to achieve the desired outcomes. Yet, health care improvers worldwide still struggle with
the adaptive side of change, which relates to unleashing the power of people (“who”) and their motivations (“why”) to advance and sustain improvement — two commonly cited reasons for the
failure of improvement initiatives.