A review of scanned medical records showed that nurses used the new dyspnea assessment tool to assess 651 of the 1,028 patients (63%) admitted to the four participating units during the study period. Excluded from our analysis were 365 patients whose medical record included no dyspnea assessment form, nine patients for whom no scanned medical record was found, and three patients who “refused” to answer the assessment questions. In a small number of cases (fewer than 1%), scanned medical records were unavailable, usually because the IPA had been completed on a unit not participating in the study, or the records were being kept on the unit for a quality assurance review.