This is a really interesting talk on silos by @gilliantett. I particularly like the bit between 39:00 and 44:00 when she talks specifically about how data can be analysed in ways that make clear the relationship between different silos. youtube.com/watch?v=Avi9xfoJ…

On Reporting Scotland just now, John Swinney looks clueless in response to @GlennBBC's questions about corridor care and winter pressures. No wonder @VP_Scot_RCEM is livid.

Taking inspiration from John Donne's poem To His Mistress Going to Bed for a control chart =IF() statement in Microsoft Excel. As one does. =IF(AND(C2>=H2,C2<=I2),"BETWEEN",IF(C2>I2,"ABOVE",IF(C2<H2,"BELOW","")))

Climbed the Cobbler today. Lots of mist swirling about.

I want to find a way of measuring bed occupancy in a way that's *patient*-centred as opposed to ward-centred. Maybe by measuring the average number of beds occupied in the ward, but just for the duration of a particular patient's stay. Bed occupancy as witnessed by the patient.

I have rashly volunteered to do a talk at the next EdinbR meeting (on 21st October). I'm calling it "For a Few Dollars More", and I'm asking the question: "Can we use the language conventions of R to help develop our thinking about whole system problems?" #rstats

Along with @ProfDerekBell, I'll be presenting data on heaviness at #SAMGlasgow at the end of next week, in a session chaired by @nickscr1. Are there ways of presenting data on specialty bed base heaviness that might enable clinical teams to consider improvement possibilities?

I've been working my way through the Stable Shift Algorithm. There's an #rstats package {autospc} that does this, but I wanted to go through the steps for myself in Excel. Here's the article about it by Tom Woodcock, Imogen O'Connor and @ProfDerekBell: qualitysafety.bmj.com/conten…

I've designed a new training course that I've called *Intentional* SPC. It's based on the idea that if you're serious about improving a process, you'll want to declare your intentions - using specification limits - before you take steps to improve it.

Excel doesn't make it easy to superimpose a vertical 'overall mean' line on a histogram so that it hits the x-axis at just the right place.

When we think about performance management information, we focus on the information itself. We ask: Is it the right metric? Is the data accurate? Is it visualized appropriately? We hardly ever think about the forum in which the information needs to be presented and discussed.

This morning I taught Part 1 of Intentional SPC to a group of @NHSGGC staff. This is a new course, designed for healthcare analysts who want to use SPC purposefully, with the same *intent* that Walter Shewhart brought to bear on the issues back in May 1924 when he invented SPC.

'When I returned to my rooms, I detected a jejune air that had not irked me before. What was wrong? Was it the screen? I turned it to face the wall. That was better.' Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited doing in 1923 what more of us should be doing in 2026.