Making New type attributes retroactive

Hi all,
I have an existing workitem type that needs a new attribute. As far as I know only new workitems of that type can show this new attribute on the presentation. I suppose that old workitems mantain its original data model.

We need that new attribute in all preexisting workitems of that type so we need a workaround.

Is there any common solution for this situation??

Our first idea to solve this is to create a new type identical to the original but adding the new attribute and then change the type of the affected workitems from the old one to the new one.
With this operation all the previously informed fields are mapped correctly and the new one appears empty.
Is this a good solution?

Thanks in advance


Andres