The development of a proper method for studying patterns of bed utilization has been difficult and slow, primarily because there is heavy reliance on "surveyor" or "viewer" opinion, which is judgmental and therefore not easily analyzed. The Medical Society of the County of Monroe, New York, has had an active program of utilization investigation and education over the past five years. Its physician members have taken part in a number of coordinated local studies as "surveyors" both in and out of the county area. The value of this approach becomes obvious when one considers not only the gathering of statistical data but the exposure of the physician "observer" or "surveyor" to the peculiar problems of utilization review. In October 1960, Dr. Hobard L. Boyd, then president of the Medical Society of the County of Monroe, initiated the program which led to the establishment of the Monroe County Medical Society's Community