Figure 1.

Survey instrument for detecting delays that unnecessarily prolonged hospitalizations by at least 1 day. The first page queries whether a delay occurred, and if so, whether it occurred at a time of possible discharge (coded A-No D/C for nonmedical causes and B-No D/C for medical causes), prior to a time of possible discharge (coded C-Delay), or not at all (coded C-No Delay). The second page was designed to categorize the factors that may have contributed to the delay. The instrument was administered separately for every patient-day (i.e., if a patient was in the hospital for 4 days, his care would have been surveyed 4 separate times).