MAN Huddle: The Art of the Adjacent Possible - 28/05/2026

MAN Huddle: 28/05/2026 Topic: The Art of the Adjacent Possible * With Neil Pettinger, Kurtosis During this Huddle Neil will explore if we can find data clues within existing practice that suggest improvements in patient flow might be more within our grasp than we think? Patient flow continues to be a problem for acute hospitals. And we are all aware that unless we can do something remarkable and sustainable to improve bed availability, it will continue to be a problem. But the directorates and specialties that manage hospital beds do not usually have ready access to data that would enable them to identify possibilities for improvement. This talk proposes a way of presenting flow metrics to inpatient directorates and specialties so that managers and clinicians can tap into the potential of internal benchmarking – what Neil is calling ‘the adjacent possible’* – in order to identify those possibilities for improvement. This is an exploratory session, and Neil will be actively inviting feedback on whether this approach feels credible, useful and workable in practice. “What is actual now enables what is next possible: the adjacent possible.” -Stuart Kauffman