Which steps are part of the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle?

• A. Plan, Do, Study, Act.
• B. Prepare, Deliver, Assess, Terminate.
• C. Propose, Do, Review, Adjust.
• D. Identify, Build, Deploy, Audit.

Answer: (A)

Plan-Do-Study-Act is a quality-improvement loop used in healthcare to test changes and learn from outcomes. Start by planning: identify the problem, set aims, predict results, and decide what data to collect. Next, do: implement the plan on a small scale and gather data. Then study: analyze the data to see if results match expectations and determine what worked or didn’t. Finally, act: decide whether to adopt the change, modify it for broader use, or discard it, and then begin another cycle to refine the improvement. This exact sequence—Plan, Do, Study, Act—defines the cycle, making it the best fit for the question. The other options use different terms that describe unrelated processes and don’t reflect this repeating improvement loop.