The major objective of this paper is to illustrate how routinely collected health information can be used to create a dataset of clinical information, and more importantly, how this information might be used to both monitor and assess hospital utilization, and support healthcare reform, at both the hospital and community level. In particular, this paper will describe a hospital-based utilization management initiative undertaken by an acute-care teaching hospital with the combined goal of

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... ng the understanding, and the management of, bed utilization within the organization. The approach taken by the hospitals described in this study was to first identify the proportion of patients, who having received care on an in-patient basis, might have been amenable for management in a less service-intensive, and perhaps less costly setting. Following from this, identifying the specific levels of care that these patients might have required, as an alternative to the in-patient are that they received, was undertaken. This latter assessment is of particular relevance for planning of community-based care.