About Positive Deviance
The Positive Deviance (PD) approach is based on the idea that within every community, there are individuals who, despite facing the same challenges and having access to the same resources, manage to find innovative and effective solutions. Instead of bringing solutions from outside, this method focuses on identifying and amplifying the successful behaviours and practices that already exist within the community.
Working together to solve common problems
Since 1990, PD has been used in a wide variety of settings, including community-based and healthcare worksites, to overcome persistent, pervasive problems and achieve substantial improvements in a variety of outcomes without requiring the use of substantial additional resources. PD often works when other quality improvement and change efforts have failed and, to our knowledge, this is the first known application of PD to improving CF outcomes. To leverage the knowledge needed for implementation, CFE is partnering with international experts with a track record in other healthcare settings outside of CF.
Community Building
This project builds on the successes of the CFE/ECFS Twinning Expansion Project (TEP). Through twinning, we have created connections between CF communities across different countries by pairing well-established CF centres (“mentor sites”) with developing centres (“mentee sites”) seeking to enhance patient outcomes through expert guidance and collaboration.
The TEP aims to reduce disparities in clinical outcomes for people with CF throughout Europe through sustainable collaborative relationships between mentors and mentees. A key innovation is the integration of patient advocacy groups and building stronger, more resilient patient and family organisations across Europe.
It is from these collaborations with patient groups that conversations started about how to drive change from within the patient community.
Within this project we will:
- Work with leaders in the field of Positive Deviance.
- Organise a pilot workshop in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in November 2025.
- Conduct ongoing, regular, meetings of the Romanian CF pilot group using the PD process.
- Organise a meeting in January with European CF patient organisation leaders to sense check and get feedback on the Romanian CF pilot project.
- Organise another workshop at the Southeastern European conference in Tbilisi, Georgia in March 2026 to engage CF patient organisations across Eastern Europe.
- Organise a feedback session and present results-to-date to the CF community in June 2026.
- Submit for publication an article on the use of positive deviance to strengthen and improve outcomes for this patient community, so it can serve as a basis for others.