Free online course · Change Basics
What Is Change Management and Why Does Quality Improvement Need It?
Every QI project changes how someone works. Learn what change management is, why your QI work needs it, and three first steps for your own project. Then make a one-page people-side starter.
- Free
- Roughly 35 minutes
- Self-paced, online
- No sign-in
- 7-question knowledge check
No sign-in. Your answers are counted anonymously to improve the courses. Add your name at the end for a certificate (it stays on your device); add your email there only if you want to hear from us. Signed in to AdoptionLab Campus? It opens on your account instead, so your progress is saved. From AdoptionLab.AI. Updated October 27, 2026.
What you will be able to do
- Describe change management in your own words.
- Explain why quality improvement needs change management, and what it adds to a QI project.
- Plan three first steps for the people side of your own QI project.
Inside the course
- Start here
- About AdoptionLab.AI
- Improvements that just don't last
- By the end of this 35 minute module, you will be able to:
- What it is and why it matters
- What is change management?
- Technical side or people side?
- Case study: a health center protects staff time
- Why the people side matters
- What a public mental health provider built over 15 years
- Practice: the checklist nobody uses
- The people side of your project
- Who is affected and what they might lose
- Practice: what is the pushback protecting?
- How to start
- How to start: three first steps
- Start small, with the people who do the work
- Practice: plan the first test
- Check and apply
- Low-stress assessment
- Tell us what you think
- Check and apply
- Next step: creating a one-page people-side project outline,
- What to take with you
- How AdoptionLab.AI can help your team succeed
- Sources
About this course
A free course from AdoptionLab.AI. Free, self-paced online courses from AdoptionLab.AI on the people side of quality improvement: change management for teams in critical access hospitals, health centers, and safety net nonprofits.
How to cite
AdoptionLab.AI. (2026). What Is Change Management and Why Does Quality Improvement Need It? [Free online course]. AdoptionLab Campus. https://campus.adoptionlab.ai/free/what-is-change-management-and-why-does-quality-improvement-need-it
Rights
Free to take, and free to share by its link. The course’s wording, activities, examples and design are the original work of AdoptionLab.AI and are protected by copyright. Please don’t copy, adapt or republish them, use them as a template for other training, or use them to train AI models, without written permission. Quoting a short passage with a link back to this page is welcome.