Institution wide use of an intensive care bedside information system creates the opportunity to make available vast amounts of clinical data to support research and quality improvement activities. Acting on this opportunity has required the development of several innovative approaches to transform this raw data into usable information. The process described herein uses commercially available software and hardware tools to extract on a daily basis, process and archive data for 7 intensive care units. Once this procedure is complete, attention is turned to using individual and combinations of data elements to build a higher level of information that more directly relates to the kinds of inquiries that help to address questions of outcome, and care quality.